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UC-Irvine Law School Has No Dean (Anymore)
On Thursday, August 16, the Chancellor of the University of California at Irvine offered Duke University constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky the job of dean at UC-Irvine’s brand new law school. Less than a week later he called Chemerinsky to withdraw the offer. It seems that the short-term dean’s politics were too left for the regents of the university, something they seem to have discovered only after the reaction by some conservative elements (donors?) to an op-ed piece by Chemerinsky in the Los Angeles Times criticizing the Bush administration.The Washington Post has the story.
Who of any scholarly merit would now consider the job?
For the conspiracy theorists, there is some food for thought at this WSJ blog entry. The school is to be called the Donald Bren School of Law after its major funder. Donald Bren is described in the article as “a billionaire real estate developer and big Republican donor.”
The answer to my own (rhetorical) question, “Who of any scholarly merit would now consider the job?” turns out to be Erwin Chemerinsky, the one person I hadn’t considered for the job. He was re-hired 6 days later.