Something Rotten in the County of Orange?
The brand new, not quite open and currently both dean less and rudderless, law school in Irvine is being born a bastard child. They recruited a daddy, Erwin Chemerinsky, but then rejected him. This is all very strange since the authority to ask someone to be dean does not normally reside with one person. Many names are vetted by a recruiting firm, a cull is made and then the final, and agreed upon, candidate is interviewed. Then there is a vote, which, if positive, is followed by an offer. We can only conclude that UC Irvine did all of this, had the vote, made the offer and then something happened.
Now I have to disclose that although I do not know Professor Chemerinsky, I am scheduled to work with him next month and moderate a discussion between him and professor Laurie Levinson following the Trial of Pinchas. We are trying the biblical figure Pinchas for his (anachronism alert) zealotry in following what he took to be G-d's order and executing a fellow Hebrew for licentiousness. Definitely an old story and perhaps the statute of limitations has tolled, but this does have “ripped from the headlines” relevance.
That aside, let me say that someone with some power, and this usually means money, put the kibosh on the good professor. Now, while it is true money talks and even yells, for this to come out after the offer has been made is just another proof of the lack of connection between success and competency. The birthing of this new law school could not be anymore awkward—though this is an optimistic position to take any time there is a confluence of money, politics and education.
I have no problem with U.C. Irvine having either a conservative or a liberal dean. Competent would be nice. I have no idea if Professor Chemerinsky would be as good a dean as he is both a scholar and advocate. I do know he is smart and this process has not been.
Had Professor Chemerinsky been picked for Chapman, a private law school, I would have been shocked and would have anticipated some committee heads to roll into the baskets at the foot of the guillotine. But U.C. Irvine is a state university. Just because it is in Orange County it does not have to follow the stereotype of Orange County—a stereotype that is way out of date. Orange County, in fact, looks like the rest of California—with all our many ethnicities and a full political spectrum.
Some years ago a friend of mine, The Reverend Robert Ross, wrote a piece suggesting that neither Orange County nor our fair state really needed another law school. He suggested that what we needed, as a society, was some better way of understanding our social contract with one another. He proposed that U.C. Irvine, instead of a law school, build a school of Theology and Moral Ethics—an institution dedicated not so much to the study of advocacy and results through argument, but the study of justice, right, morality and our common values. With the adversarial approach you have winners and losers. With ethics, strange as it may seem, there is at least a chance for justice.
Somewhere, some time there was a vote. Some group drew up a contract and made an offer to Professor Chemerinsky. He accepted. They withdrew. We are being told politics had nothing to do with it. Money had nothing to do with it. No one told the man who made the offer to withdraw it. He just changed his mind. Anyone believe this? I didn’t think so. An Institute for Theology and Moral Ethics would not act this way.
The only way to save this mess is to make Chemerinsky an offer he can’t refuse. Oh, they just did. Do I say “Never mind. It all turned out fine?” No. This was a mess. Now there is a partial save. However, we still deserve to know what happened and why we were insulted for a week with weak cover stories.