An article in the San Jose Mercury News reports that John Woo -- former legal advisor to George W. Bush -- could face punishment from UC Berkeley, where he is still a tenured law professor:
UC Berkeley leaders are wrestling with that decision as a federal investigation into John Yoo's legal advice to the Bush administration apparently winds down.
The dilemma is rare. At risk are the tenets of academic freedom that have long allowed college faculty members to speak their minds in the name of scholarship.
Yoo's case revolves around his advice on dealing with accused terrorists, including a notorious memo that provides legal justification for torture. Yoo, who is temporarily teaching at Orange County's Chapman University, has long attracted protests on his home campus, but some surprising allies have come to his defense.
"I think this is simply a left-wing version of McCarthyism," said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor who disagrees strongly with Yoo's views on torture. "He should be judged solely on the merits of his academics."
But Berkeley administrators and faculty leaders said they would be concerned about Yoo teaching law students if he were found to have violated ethical or legal standards. Critics have called Yoo a yes-man for President George W. Bush, essentially telling him what he wanted to hear.
Read on.
1 comment:
Yoo is hosed and he might write his book from his jail cell. As for the college, they would have to ask themselves will the parents paying these high cost are willing to let their kids to taught how to torture innocent kidnapped men/woman/children and spin the Constitution. It's one thing to teach another to make a crime legal.
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