Should John Yoo Be Fired?

Posted April 22nd, 2008 by gestroud • 19 views • Print • Email

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Since the recent declassification of the John Yoo torture memos, there has been a heated debate among academics and others as to whether John Woo should continue to hold his position as a tenured professor at UC Berkeley School of Law. At issue is the freedom of expression that tenure was designed to protect vs. the despicable opinions Yoo espouses. Opinions that don’t merely reflect the misguided judgment of some low-level government functionary, but opinions that were provided for the expressed intent to give legal cover to the Bush administration’s torture regime and ultimately branding both Yoo and this administration as war criminals.

UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley, Jr. issued a memorandum stating that Yoo will not be dismissed nor will there be an inquiry into the matter. While Edley believes that the protections provided by tenure are nearly “absolute”, and therefore trump the content contained in the torture memos, he interestingly titles his memorandum “The Torture Memos and Academic Freedom.”

Professor Yoo began teaching at Berkeley Law in 1993, received tenure in 1999, and then took a leave of absence to work in the Bush Administration. He returned in 2004, and remains a very successful teacher and prolific (though often controversial) scholar. Because this is a public university, he enjoys not only security of employment and academic freedom, but also First Amendment and Due Process rights.

It seems we do need regular reminders: These protections, while not absolute, are nearly so because they are essential to the excellence of American universities and the progress of ideas. Indeed, in Berkeley’s classrooms and courtyards our community argues about the legal and moral issues with the intensity and discipline these crucial issues deserve. Those who prefer to avoid these arguments-be they left or right or lazy-will not find Berkeley or any other truly great law school a wholly congenial place to study. For that we make no apology. (emphasis original)

More on this debate can be found in the posts, and corresponding comments of Brad Delong, Marty Lederman and Henry Farrell.

Glenn Greenwald takes care to point out that as reprehensible as Yoo is and as despicable as his dubious legal opinions are, it would be a grave mistake to scapegoat John Yoo, all the while forgetting the people who were and still are behind all this.

But I want to focus on a slightly different problem — namely, the danger of turning John Yoo into a scapegoat through unwarranted focus on him. Yoo’s defense that he was merely offering legal opinions, not making any policy decisions, is absurd, since, as he surely knew at the time, the purpose of those opinions was to enable and legally authorize savage and illegal acts. But it is true that he did not act alone, or with supreme authority — really, he lacked authority to implement any policies at all. And it’s also true that he could not have accomplished anything without the highest officials in our government at least implicitly encouraging and supporting what he was doing. (emphasis original)

This is undoubtedly the most important aspect of all this. Whether or not Yoo keeps his job, the people who sought the legal cover of Yoo’s opinions are not only just as responsible for these memos but are in fact, still in power and are continuing to perpetrate these war crimes as we speak.

But I wanted to add a less important but still disheartening point to all of this. Berkeley used to be at the center of these kinds of controversial issues, students would have taken to the streets after learning that such a disgusting character was teaching at there college. Whether Yoo deserves to be terminated or not, the outcry from the entire San Francisco Bay Area community would have been heard across this country but today, nary a peep is heard, the entire controversy has been virtually contained to the blogosphere and academia. This is the culture we live in today, torture has become the norm and almost nobody cares.

Author: Paul Wilden

Source: EzineArticles