Monday, September 17, 2007

L'affaire Chemerinsky: He's hired! He's fired! He's re-hired!

Enough said for now.

EVENING UPDATE:
Check out Matt Welch's editorial, posted Monday evening on the L.A. Times website:

excerpt:
So, all's well that ends well, right? Not so fast...

But even though Chemerinsky has now been hired back, the story is far from over as far as public interest is concerned, for at least two reasons:

1) We still don't know why Drake fired his new law dean in the first place. This would be a mere personnel mystery, if it weren't for the fact that...

2) Drake, while never giving a sensible reason for the dismissal, did tell people that it had to do with the content of Chemerinsky's political speech (specifically an Aug. 16 Op-Ed in the L.A. Times), and to the "pressure" and "opposition" he was receiving from unnamed Republicans. If an Op-Ed can truly get an academic — even an administrator — fired, then that's a data point about the erosion of our free-speech climate that we deserve to know about.

And if indeed there are Republicans powerful enough to scotch the hiring of a well-known liberal dean, we need to know who they are, and how exactly they wield their power, so that we can prepare ourselves for next time, or take measures to reduce improper influence...

...People who believe Orange County to be the home of knuckle-dragging neanderthals had their biases reinforced this week, as did conservatives embittered by double-standards of "academic freedom."...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm... Wonder whether I might be able to hire him as a trial attorney in Crosby v. SOCCCD, Scheduled to begin Sept 24, 2007, at 9:00 a.m. at 700 Civic Center Drive Santa Ana Dept. C23? Either way, can't wait to get Mathur, Telson, Fuentes, Chief Philistine Cobos, and the rest on the witness stand. Was I really "disciplined" when Telson suspended me for 5 weeks? or was she just having a little harmless fun with me, that I need to take like a sport? (The later is basically what the District's lawyers are now arguing).
PS: My web page has been updated with more facts of the case, and what it's really all about. In case anyone's curious, I was once a student of McKeon's at the U of Chicago. McKeon was a student of John Dewey. So I'm "well bred." :)

Anonymous said...

Good for Chemerinsky. I hear he is a friends with Carol Sobel. True?

Anonymous said...

Just heard a rumor on the radio about how it went down: Drake and Chemerinsky conspired on the whole thing (hire, fire, re-hire) just to make sure Chemerinsky's hire happened, as a kind of insurance against the pressure from the right-wing knuckleheads.

Anonymous said...

Crosby, you need help - mental help.

Anonymous said...

Crosby needs his own blog.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that silly UCI. I sometimes regret that I am an alumna of the place; they cannot seem to steer clear of profoundly disturbing and extremely embarrassing scandals. (transferring human eggs without permission, misusing cadavers; you name it....) Thanks for keeping our attention on this nefarious affair, Rebel Girl!

Anonymous said...

Telson can abuse students all she wants, but misusing a cadaver? That gets my blood boiling. Let's picket the county morgue, demanding a cadaver's bill of rights--- like, the right to free decomposition.

Anonymous said...

crosby is his own blog. blog on, dude! http://www.homevideos.com/movies-covers/Fast%20Times%20at%20Ridgemont%20High.jpg

Anonymous said...

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Mptv/1097/11821_0027.jpg

mkriley said...

Which one is Crosby?

Anonymous said...

Poor Dead Man Walking the picket Line, talking about his blood boiling. Those UCI people didn't even have the decency to embalm him. Enough to make my formaldehyde boil.

Anonymous said...

Papa Joe, you suck! You betrayed the Revolution! Trotsky was the man to succeed me! You're no better than that two bit counter-revolutionary Raghu Mathur, the Chancellor of the silly little junior college secretly named after you in California somewhere. What do they publicly call that place? Horse's Ass College? or something like? It has something to do with some body part of a horse, that much I know for sure. And since it's named after you, Comrade Stalin, and you're a total ass, they might as well call it Horse's Ass College.
I'd like to take that Raghu's idiot's hammer, the one stolen from our symbol, and hammer your head with it, you traitor!

Anonymous said...

Now, come on, what did the horse ever do to deserve that!?

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...