Noting that nothing about Berkeley is quite as straightforward as it seems..."We're actually a fairly broad church here," Birgeneau says, "we've got the law professor John Yoo, who has been a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy, and the biggest student club on campus is the Republican."
Birgeneau is too much of a diplomat to admit to any disappointment at this; rather he mentions it in the spirit of live and let live. For whatever anyone might say about Berkeley, most people rub along fairly well together...
Fortunately, the administrator's accommodation of a war criminal on the Boalt Hall faculty has been challenged by the community at large.
Economics Professor Brad DeLong submitted a letter to the chancellor:
The National Lawyers Guild Bay Area Chapter wrote their own:
The City of Berkeley passed a Resolution:
Berkeley Law students' Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture asked
National Accountability Action Network director Cynthia Papermaster protested outside California Hall, clarifying that
academic freedom was not the issue. "Its about his actions [at the Department of Justice]."
World Can't Wait, Progressive Democrats of America, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, and Reverend Kurt Kuhwald have initiated a "Berkeley Says NO To Torture" Week.
People of conscience continue with their message:
FIRE, DISBAR, AND PROSECUTE JOHN YOO!
