Now that we know that the infamous "torture memo" is not the only time John Yoo was intimately involved in a transgression against the Bill of Rights, shouldn't there be renewed pressure for him to be fired from the UCSF law school?
Last spring there were numerous protests against John Yoo holding on to his faculty position at Berkeley law. The dean, who otherwise seems to be a pretty good guy, staunchly defended keeping Yoo on.
Correction: Not knowing the intricacies of the University of California system, I screwed up on where Yoo's faculty appointment: he has a faculty appointment at Berkeley Law, University of California. Apologies.
(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo)
According to Dean Edley's statement at the time, short of a conviction for criminal behavior, Yoo could not be dismissed from the faculty. But the dean added a personal note suggesting Yoo is not really responsible for violating constitutional rights because the politicians made him do it:
As critical as I am of his analyses, no argument about what he did or didn't facilitate, or about his special obligations as an attorney, makes his conduct morally equivalent to that of his nominal clients, Secretary Rumsfeld, et al., or comparable to the conduct of interrogators distant in time, rank and place. Yes, it does matter that Yoo was an adviser, but President Bush and his national security appointees were the deciders.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/...
This conclusion of the dean's strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Since Yoo's job was to advise the White House on what is legal and what is not, advising them that they are legally allowed to torture prisoners (or use the military to break into American homes) is tantamount to approving and supporting those behaviors.
In addition, while I am not a lawyer, my understanding is that it is considered a breach of legal ethics to advise a client to do something illegal. And even if the dean of Berkeley Law was not concerned with legal ethics, doesn't Yoo's faulty legal reasoning (there's pretty much a consensus on this) mean that he is not qualified to be teaching?
With the recent release of horrifying memos, there is even more evidence of Yoo's involvement in pleasing his master by being willing to go to any lengths to justify violations of our Constitutional rights. I can't imagine how any decent law school can justify keeping Yoo on their faculty.
Maybe according to the University by-laws he can't be dismissed unless convicted of a crime (something that might be coming). But everyone knows that there are ways and ways of getting rid of someone. The other faculty and the dean could make his professional life there a living hell (though one far less hell-like than that of our prisoners in Guantanamo and other places).
I just want to end on this note -- a particularly ironic excerpt from John Yoo's faculty profile:
From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/...