John Eastman Resigns as Chapman Law School Dean to Run for State Attorney General

By Matt Coker, OC Weekly, January 28 2010

Controversial conservative legal scholar John Eastman, who brought his buddy and Bush torture memo author John Yoo to Orange County to teach law last year, is stepping down as dean of Chapman University's law school to run for California attorney general...

Will he be joining John Yoo's other cohort at the California Department of Justice?

'Torture Memos' vs. Academic Freedom

A review of a Berkeley law professor's memos to the White House about counterterrorism policies prompts calls for his job

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By DAVID GLENN

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

When people gathered last May for the commencement ceremony at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, they were greeted by chanting activists from the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing groups.

The university, protesters shouted, should fire John C. Yoo, a tenured professor who has taught at the law school since 1993. While on leave at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel between 2001 and 2003, Mr. Yoo drafted what have come to be known as the "torture memos" -- a series of secret memoranda that gave benediction to President George W. Bush's interrogation and surveillance policies.

Some scholars believe that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were so shoddy that they amounted to professional misconduct. Several of those critics also think that Mr. Yoo's academic job should be in jeopardy. But others -- including some who agree that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were pernicious -- argue that penalizing Mr. Yoo for his work in Washington could set a troubling precedent for academic freedom.

Now the debate over Mr. Yoo's presence at Berkeley has taken on new urgency. At the beginning of March, the government released several previously undisclosed memoranda by Mr. Yoo. And the Justice Department will soon complete a review of his conduct. According to a Newsweek report, the department might allege that Mr. Yoo improperly colluded with the White House to craft justifications for dubious counterterrorist policies. It could be the credible charge of misconduct that critics have been waiting for.

A Higher Standard

At the center of the storm sits Christopher Edley Jr., dean of Boalt Hall, who is fielding anxious phone calls from faculty members and students.

The Trial of John Yoo

THE MOVING TARGET blog  April 21, 2009 

John Yoo

I have just returned from a debate on presidential power at Chapman University Law School.

In retrospect, the event should more properly have been called "The Trial of John Yoo."

And strikingly, it was Yoo who cast himself in the role of defendant.

from THE CHRONICLES of a BLAWGIRL

a blawg by julie anne ines

School dean and law prof at Chapman Law debate if former Bush adviser John Yoo fit to teach

10 APRIL 2009 10:51 AM

John Yoo

The Chapman University School of Law dean and a professor at the Orange County, Calif., law school gave LA Times readers a preview of what the upcoming debate between former Bush administration legal adviser John Yoo and professors at the school could look like.

Published in the LA Times Opinion section Thursday, Dean John C. Eastman and professor Lawrence Rosenthal wrote separate pieces arguing whether Chapman visiting professor John Yoo, who teaches at U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall, is fit to mold and Socratize young legal minds.

Mr. Rosenthal, whose piece ran above Eastman's, stated that Mr. Yoo should not be teaching because the memos he produced for the Bush administration, including one that said the president could allow torture, were flawed in their legal reasoning.

'Torture Memos' vs. Academic Freedom

A review of a Berkeley law professor's memos to the White House about counterterrorism policies prompts calls for his job

By DAVID GLENN The Chronicle of Higher Education From the issue dated March 20, 2009 

When people gathered last May for the commencement ceremony at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, they were greeted by chanting activists from the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing groups.

The university, protesters shouted, should fire John C. Yoo, a tenured professor who has taught at the law school since 1993. While on leave at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel between 2001 and 2003, Mr. Yoo drafted what have come to be known as the "torture memos" -- a series of secret memoranda that gave benediction to President George W. Bush's interrogation and surveillance policies.

Some scholars believe that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were so shoddy that they amounted to professional misconduct. Several of those critics also think that Mr. Yoo's academic job should be in jeopardy. But others -- including some who agree that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were pernicious -- argue that penalizing Mr. Yoo for his work in Washington could set a troubling precedent for academic freedom.

Now the debate over Mr. Yoo's presence at Berkeley has taken on new urgency. At the beginning of March, the government released several previously undisclosed memoranda by Mr. Yoo. And the Justice Department will soon complete a review of his conduct. According to a Newsweek report, the department might allege that Mr. Yoo improperly colluded with the White House to craft justifications for dubious counterterrorist policies. It could be the credible charge of misconduct that critics have been waiting for.

A Higher Standard

At the center of the storm sits Christopher Edley Jr., dean of Boalt Hall, who is fielding anxious phone calls from faculty members and students.

"The analogy on everyone's mind here is the McCarthy era, when professors were harassed and sometimes prosecuted for their outside political endeavors," Mr. Edley says. "That explains the attractiveness of a bright-line rule that requires an actual criminal conviction before a professor can be disciplined for outside work."

But Mr. Edley also says that a higher standard should apply to law professors and other instructors in professional schools. In those fields, Mr. Edley says, the university should investigate credible allegations of serious off-campus professional misconduct, even if a criminal conviction is nowhere in sight.

"Law professors, after all, are charged with preparing the next generation of professionals to live their lives according to our ethical canons," he says.

If the Justice Department's review includes serious allegations, Mr. Edley says, the university might be justified in formally reviewing Mr. Yoo's extracurricular activities. Such a move very likely would be triggered by the universitywide Academic Senate; the dean cannot initiate it. Mr. Edley emphasizes that he is speaking hypothetically, and he says that any punishment need not necessarily include revocation of tenure. The university's rules allow far milder sanctions, including written censure and a reduction in salary.

Watch Keith Olbermann's interview of Scott Horton on MSNBC's Countdown, courtesy of rawstory.com.

John Yoo Hearts Orange County

By Scott Horton, HARPER'S MAGAZINE 

Just as the publication of another batch of his memos--repudiated by the Bush Justice Department just as it was handing the keys over to its successor--is causing quite a stir in legal circles, John Yoo appears in an interview in the Orange County Register.