The Faculty Lounge

I've Just Seen a Face

I could not find a live video of the Beatles performing this song. I really like the 12-string guitar, but that is not why I am posting it today.

Mike Cahill Stepping Down as Brooklyn Law Dean

Michael Cahill has announced that he will step down as dean of Brooklyn Law School at the end of the 2022-23 school year.  Cahill became dean in 2019.  He will rejoin the faculty.

Musings on the January 6th hearings...

As I write the following, I brace myself for the inevitable attacks from both Trump supporters and some lefties determined to attack anything that even remotely supports anything republican.

Despite this eventuality, I must admit after reviewing the testimony and evidence from the January 6th hearings, I cannot help but conclude a man that had so much to gain, rejected self-interest and was nothing short of heroic. Vice President Mike Pence stood up for principle, for the Constitution, and for the people. As his counsel informed him so eloquently at the end of that fateful day, he fought the good fight and finished the race. Think about it---he was asked to give himself the opportunity to continue to be Vice-president, a position he held for four years; one that was likely a gateway for an eventual presidential run. He could have taken a path to serve his future fairly well. Instead, literally underneath the Capitol that was overrun by rioters, many hunting for him, he decided to stay at the site, determined to undertake his constitutional roll and preside over the certification of the results of the presidential election. As a result, he ensured a peaceful transition of power, despite the attack on the Capitol. 

As during the Nixon era where Republican leaders advised the president to resign, in order to preserve our democracy, heroes need to be above politics and stand for what is right. Pence followed Vice-President Al Gore's heroic and noble efforts after the 2000 presidential election. Though I spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours volunteering for Vice President Gore's election efforts, at the time I would have preferred he not be so  honorable, I now realize what Gore did the day he certified the election was the correct decision.

 

While Vice President Pence is too conservative for my taste and some will assuredly assert he was merely being calculating, I invite you to take a look at the pictures of him at the secret location on the afternoon of January 6th, and I bet most will literally feel both the danger and tension of that moment. It is for that reason, I will always respect Vice President Pence for what he did on January 6, 2021--he faced a clear and present danger to his life and that of his family. Further, while at the secret location, Pence was asked to leave the Capitol by secret service. Had he done so, who knows what would have happened thereafter. At the very least, the country would have faced a constitutional crisis likely only resolved weeks, if not months later, by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Instead, Vice President Pence refused to leave the secret location (evidently somewhere underneath the Capitol), determined to do the people's work and did in fact complete the people's work and certified the presidential election in favor of President Biden. I am nothing short of proud to learn of these heroic acts. 

The Hill's New Newsletter

The Hill has started a newsletter, with options for breaking news, subject matter reports (elections, defense, economy, health), and a weekly selection of opinion pieces. You can sign up for some or all of the features here.

It's free.

UC Hastings Seeks Business and Con Law Entry and Lateral Faculty

This just in:

The University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco seeks to hire two entry-level or lateral tenure-track faculty members. One of the lines is for a constitutional law scholar who can teach Constitutional Law. The other line is for a business law scholar who can teach upper division business classes such as Business Associations.

Candidates should send a cv, statement of research and teaching interests, and representative publications in .pdf format to Professor Ben Depoorter Appointments Committee Chair (appointments2022@uchastings.edu), with the subject heading “Faculty Position.”

We seek innovative and productive scholars and devoted teachers who will be role models for our students. We are particularly interested in candidates who will contribute to our vibrant and diverse community of interdisciplinary scholars. Applicants should have a serious interest in UC Hastings and living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Giuliani's Disgrace

My new column on The Hill expands on yesterday’s revelations about Rudy Giuliani’s responsibility for the Big Lie, explaining his abuse of the judicial system to give a veneer of legitimacy to Trump’s phony claims of voter fraud. Here is the gist:

Jan. 6 and the dishonor that will remain 

The Hill

BY STEVEN LUBET, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/14/22

Rudy Giuliani may not be the greatest villain in the story of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, but he is certainly among the most dishonorable. As we learned at yesterday’s second hearing of the House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, it was an “inebriated” Giuliani who urged Trump on election night to begin claiming that the election had been stolen. Then he made it worse.

Relying on his unique credibility as a once-respected and accomplished lawyer, Giuliani soon raised the phony arguments about so-called voter fraud in federal court, which initially gave the false allegations a veneer of legitimacy. If not quite the originator of the “Big Lie” – that was Trump himself – Giuliani was one of its earliest super-spreaders.

But winning the case was never the point. No halfway-decent lawyer could have believed it might succeed; Trump’s Attorney General William Barr called the legal arguments “bullshit.” The real objective of the litigation was to begin the process of undermining public confidence in the election, setting up Trump’s refusal to leave office. The courtroom was just a stage for declaiming baseless conspiracy theories. Giuliani’s case was not merely frivolous; it was devious.

You can read the full essay at The Hill.

Russell Korobkin Named Interim Dean of UCLA Law

UCLA Law has announced that Professor Russell Korobkin is taking over as interim dean of the law school effective today.  He replaces Jennifer Mnookin who is heading off to Madison, Wisconsin later this summer.  Korobkin has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 2001 and holds a JD from Stanford.  

More on the CUNY Law Faculty's Israel Boycott

The Alliance for Academic Freedom, of which I am a member, comprises more than 200 liberal and progressive scholars committed to upholding academic freedom and free speech in campus debates surrounding Israel and Palestine, supportive of both peoples’ national aspirations, and opposed to Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Here is AAF's recent statement on the CUNY Law faculty's recent BDS resolution:

A CRITIQUE OF THE CUNY LAW SCHOOL’S ANTI-ZIONIST ACTION

On May 12, 2022, the faculty of the law school at the City University of New York voted unanimously to endorse a controversial and politically charged BDS resolution passed last December by the school’s student government association. The Alliance for Academic Freedom calls on the law school faculty to repeal its endorsement, which threatens academic freedom on two levels.

In the first place, the resolution that the faculty have endorsed explicitly violates the basic tenets of academic freedom by its very content. Specifically, it calls on CUNY to end study-abroad programs and other collaborations with Israeli universities; more generally, it urges compliance with existing BDS guidelines, which bar academic and intellectual exchanges with Israel. The content of the resolution itself is therefore a call to discard the right of students and faculty to pursue their research and teaching without political restrictions.

In addition, the law school’s action violates principles of academic freedom by taking a collective stand on a contested political issue in a way that is anything but benign or anodyne. Although individual faculty members are free to take any political positions they wish, when the faculty act on behalf of an administrative unit to collectively issue a statement or endorsement, they do so on behalf of the institution—especially when they do so in the name of an entire division of the university. Moreover, a school of law like CUNY’s has greater prestige and authority than a department within a school or college and thus has more likelihood of being perceived as speaking for the overall institution.

It is particularly irresponsible for law school faculty to endorse the radical polemical claim that Israel is engaged in genocide. One would have expected law professors to apply the legal definition of genocide, rather than embrace its use as an irresponsible political accusation.