According to the L.A. Times, UC Irvine is working on a possible deal to rehire liberal legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as its dean. Meanwhile, Chemerinsky himself had an op ed in yesterday’s LA Times telling his side of the story, and reaffirming his claim that UCI Chancellor Michael Drake told him that the original offer was rescinded because of his liberal political views. This directly contradicts Drake’s own account, which holds that political issues had nothing to do with the decision, but failed to provide any alternative explanation.
On balance, I welcome UCI’s move to rehire Chemerinsky, which seems to me at least an implicit admission that decision to rescind his offer was a mistake and (probably) motivated by misplaced concerns over his ideology.
At this point, I probably will not be doing any more Chemerinsky blogging, as I don’t have any inside information not available to the general public, and the points that I might be interested in making are likely to be made just as effectively by others. I will blog about it again only if I have something original to say.
For those interested in continuing to follow this issue, Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog has been posting regular, detailed updates.