Criticism abounds in dean rejection

Details are scant on how UC Irvine officials will proceed in their search for a dean for its new law school following Chancellor Michael Drake’s decision to rescind an offer to prominent constitutional lawyer Erwin Chemerinsky.

Chemerinsky, a well-known law and political science professor at Duke University, was offered the founding dean position on Aug. 16 and signed a job offer agreement on Sept. 7.

Four days later, Drake rescinded the offer in person in North Carolina.

Drake did not respond to several requests for an interview, but in a statement issued Thursday to faculty, he looked to the future and the school’s planned opening in 2009.

“I am confident that our search process will ultimately result in the appointment of a founding dean who will work with my colleagues and me to achieve our vision for the law school,” he said.

School officials would not elaborate on whether a second or third choice for the position was lined up, or exactly how the search committee will proceed.

Exactly why Chemerinsky was offered the dean position, which Drake knew about, and then let go four days after his signing, is also ambiguous. Efforts to reach Chemerinsky were unsuccessful.

Chemerinsky in an interview on KPCC-FM (89.3) Thursday morning said Drake admitted he was not prepared for the backlash from conservatives.

“[Drake] said I have proven to be too politically controversial. He hadn’t expected the extent of the opposition to my being hired,” Chemerinsky said.

In his statement, Drake said the decision was not ideological, political or personal.

“It was mine and mine alone,” he said. He added it was not based on donor or political pressure, but through a “culmination of decisions over a period of time” that convinced him Chemerinsky would not fit into his vision of the law school.

Cathy Lawhon UCI’s director of media relations, explained the decision this way: “Bits of information came to him [in those four days] and on [Sept. 11] he rescinded it.”

Law experts throughout Southern California agree the decision may hamper the search for a new dean.

“I suspect it’ll be harder to attract top-flight faculty when you have this kind of egg on your face,” said Bill Araiza associate dean of faculty at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “I would ask myself what the working environment would be like with this happening.”

UCI’s ambitious recruitment of Chemerinsky was widely viewed as a way to quickly give the school credence, but the supposed worry that his politics would cloud his judgment seems unfounded to USC Dean of Law Robert Rasmussen.

“I think that’s one reason why you see such diversity among law deans [politically]. Because we know it’s not a platform for a law dean. You share the vision of the faculty and the school.”

Comments from UCI leaders were less forthcoming Thursday.

Ron Huff, a member of UCI’s dean search committee and dean of social ecology at the university, declined to comment Thursday, instead steering all interview requests to the chancellor’s office.

Messages left with Mark Robinson and Gary Singer, both local lawyers and members of the search committee, were not returned Thursday.

Some bloggers have questioned whether Chemerinsky was one of the “Duke 88” faculty, whose petition last year was viewed as prematurely convicting the three lacrosse players. He was not.

“I’m not sure after this misstep they open their doors by 2009,” said John Eastman, dean of Chapman University School of Law. “The amount of work that goes into founding a new law school, to get someone of national academic stature to really put their entire scholarly career on hold, it’s a certain kind of person that is willing to take that on.

“Now no matter whoever gets the job, everyone is going to know they were second choice.”