Why? It's Orange County, Jake. (Rebel Girl)

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WE HOPE TO HAVE A POST from Red Emma later, but while we're waiting Rebel Girl would like to draw your attention to the brouhaha over at UC Irvine: Chancellor Michael Drake's decision to withdraw the offer to Erwin Chemerinksy to be the inaugural dean of the UCI Donald Bren School of Law.

Rebel Girl knew it was too good to be true when she first read the accounts a few weeks ago. Even then she had to wonder why the story was in the paper and feared the worst.
From today's Los Angeles Times:

Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known liberal expert on constitutional law, said he had signed a contract Sept. 4, only to be told Tuesday by Chancellor Michael V. Drake that Drake was voiding their deal because Chemerinsky was too liberal and the university had underestimated "conservatives out to get me."

In his statement on his website (http://www.chancellor.uci.edu/ ), Chancellor Drake says, "I have come to the very difficult conclusion that Professor Chemerinsky is not the right fit for the dean’s position at UC Irvine at this time."

Meanwhile, in the LA Times, UCI Professor Jon Wiener claims that the dismissal is "the biggest violation of academic freedom in the histroy of UCI. Nationally, it is the biggest academic freedom case of the year. Some people are saying that [UCI senate faculty] have to take this to the faculty senate and make a faculty-wide statement condemning it."

Perhaps our own Academic Senates would like to take the matter up and consider a resolution.

If you'd like to send an email (as Rebel Girl did) to Chancellor Drake, his address is: chancellor@uci.edu.