Nuts & Boalts , Monday, July 28, 2008
My thought is that Boalt dropped the ball. Think about it: John Yoo, a tenured professor at Berkeley Law, took a political bullet for the President because he was the President's lawyer. Talk about a teachable moment in legal professionalism! Academic freedom; service to country; legal ethics; politics; war; tenure -- all these issues were floating around our hallowed halls last spring, yet if you asked most of our professors whether Yoo made the correct ethical or moral decision, you would have had better luck listening for a pin drop than an answer. In substance, it matters little to me what Boalt professors and faculty think about Yoo or Bush or torture. But the fact that they bit their lips and held their tongues in front of 800 soon-to-be lawyers seems disappointing. What could have motivated that silence? Political nonchalance? Adademic courtesy? Decorum? What kind of message did Boalt send to a rising generation of America's attorneys? That niceties are more important in the law than frankness or moral compass?
read full commentary at http://tinyurl.com/6768zp .
