Erwin Chemerinsky's law school "team lineup"

Marla Jo Fisher over at the OC Reg just posted this:

Who is on UCI's law school team lineup?

Marla informs us that the "legal blogosphere around the country has been buzzing in recent weeks with speculation and news about Irvine's new faculty, which has been described as unusual in the number of prominent women, and also in its ethnic composition."

Indeed it has. You’ll recall that Erwin Chemerinsky, the new dean, was hired, then fired, then rehired. Evidently, local right-wingers were upset about Professor C's politics. Some intelligent conservatives (even local ones) came to his defense.

Among Chemerinsky’s hires are

• Rachel Moran, “a UC Berkeley law professor who will become the president next year of the Association of American Law Schools.”

“She has been the director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change at UC Berkeley's law school, Boalt Hall.”

• “A veteran Los Angeles Times legal affairs reporter, Henry Weinstein, who took a buyout recently, will also join the staff to teach fledgling lawyers how to investigate facts.” (New hire Catherine Fisk is pictured at right.)

The Reg article gives the full list of hires. Also hired was someone whose career I’ve followed for years: UCI Psychology Professor Elizabeth Loftus, a renowned expert on memory.

Loftus is somewhat of a hero in the “skeptical” movement (which, essentially, debunks pseudoscience and promotes logic and science). Wikipedia briefly describes the ”Jane Doe” case and Loftus’ famous investigation concerning it, which has helped discredit therapies involving repressed and recovered “memories”:

"Jane Doe" was the subject of a case study published in 1997 by Dr. David Corwin on issues of repressed and recovered memory. Neither the study nor later follow-up studies and articles referred to her by her real name. As a psychiatrist retained in a divorce case, Corwin had videotaped an interview with Jane Doe—then six years old—in which she claimed to have suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her biological mother. Eleven years later, Corwin showed Jane Doe the original tape after obtaining approval from her and her guardian. Corwin then videotaped a follow-up interview in which Jane Doe appeared to spontaneously recall another abusive event she had suffered despite having had no conscious memory of abuse in the years since the initial interview. Corwin published a transcript of the tape and an explanatory article. With Doe's permission, Corwin also played portions of both videotapes to numerous professional audiences.

Loftus hired a private investigator in California and together with co-researcher Melvin Guyer undertook a subsequent investigation into the case, reviewed extensive court records and interviewed Jane's mother and foster mother. In 2002, based on the information obtained, Loftus and Guyer published an article entitled "Who Abused Jane Doe? The Hazards of the Single Case History" in the Skeptical Inquirer. The article was highly critical of the scientific validity of Corwin's 1997 article, and questioned the factual accuracy of his account.

SEE also:

• On so-called “repressed memories”
• ”The Myth of repressed memory”