Academic Freedom and the Chemerinsky Debacle

Inside Higher Education reports on the firing of Erwin Chemerinsky as founding Dean of the Bern School of Law at the University of California Irvine, before he even made it out of his Duke University office. At some point between signing the employment contract and the beginning of his official duties as Dean, Chancellor Michael Drake decided that Chemerinsky was not someone who ought to fill the Dean’s position and the university rescinded the contract. Chancellor Drake defends his actions on the editorial page of today’s L.A. Times.

Distilled to its essence, the issue seems to be that of academic freedom and leadership in higher education. There can be no question that Chemerinsky was qualified for the deanship. In fact, it might be more accurate to state that getting him would have been, for UC Irvine, a coupe. It is Chemerinsky’s contention that it was his status as a public “liberal” that caused the contract to be rescinded (also argued in the L.A. Times).

Drake contends, on the other hand, that Chemerinsky would have been a polarizing figure. As such, he contends that he began to have uncertainties as to whether Chemerinsky would be able to step out of the spotlight in order to put his time and energies into developing a new law school. It is, of course, one of the principle roles of a Dean to raise money and some have claimed that as an outspoken jurist Chemerinsky’s appeal would have been limited.

The fact of the matter, at the end of the day, is that he is a first rate constitutional scholar and that his firing will hurt UC Irvine. On the other hand, the idea of academic freedom has never extended to donors. In other words, donors are always free to refrain from giving on the basis of not liking the views of an administrator. We might call this narrow or prejudiced, but it is a reality and one faced by more than one or two schools.