UCI is Looking for a New Dean

Many Californians think the Golden State needs another state-supported law school about as much as it needs another fast food restaurant.  It is, after all, the only state where anybody with a spare bedroom and a table can open a law school, and where you don’t even have to go to law school to become a lawyer.  But they’ve apparently found something they like even less:  a high profile leftist law professor to act as its founding dean.

The chancellor of the University of California-Irvine, apparently under some pressure from the Board of Regents and members of the UCI community, has canceled the contract of Duke law professor Erwin Chemerinsky to become the Orange County law school’s first dean.  Getting Chemerinsky, widely regarded as one of the country’s most prominent legal scholars, had been something of a coup for UCI.  But his highly public advocacy on hot-button issues like abortion, affirmative action, and displays of the Ten Commandments, his attacks on conservative supreme court justices, and his reported unwillingness to lower his profile made him a political lightning rod, especially in one of the most conservative areas of California.  The fact that the new school is being named for a prominent Republican who gave it $20 million is said not have affected the decision.  Chemerinsky, who had previously been turned down for the deanship at Duke, says he won’t challenge the termination.

Many commentators are saying that UCI will now have trouble attracting candidates for the $300,000+ position.  So this is your chance to get your application in.

[Frank Snyder]