Hey Boys & Girls...let's all tell UC Berkley what we think of Prof.John Yoo.

[farmbo]

We've seen his "work" at the Department of Justice-- torture memos, the green light for domestic spying-- you name it, John Yoo would crank out an official-looking memorandum which would invariably justify the most ungodly deviations from our constitutional heritage in support of the Cheney and Bush's dreary, distorted world view. In the process he has set back America's standing in the civilized world by decades (if not centuries).

His reward?

A cushy tenured position at UC Berkeley's college of law.

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/yooj/

How about showing some love for the fine folks at UC Berkeley who gave Professor Yoo his nifty golden parachute:


Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau
Office of the Chancellor
200 California Hall # 1500
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1500

Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]

[e-mail]

My sample letter:

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau:

This past week the worst fears of many Americans were realized with the release of an October 2001 Memorandum written by Professor John Yoo, then an official with the Bush Administration's Department of Justice. As many suspected, it was this John Yoo memorandum which provided military and civilian interrogators with a legal "justification" to utilize torture and water boarding on suspects in military custody. Professor Yoo also opined that the Forth Amendment to the United States Constitution has "no application" to "domestic military" activities, giving a green light for all manner of warrantless domestic surveillance activities. As you know, John Yoo is now a law professor at the Berkeley College of Law.

Other than the sheer embarrassment of hiring law professor who, it now appears, is ignorant of established standards of constitutional supremacy in our legal system, UC Berkeley now also holds the distinction of providing a prestigious platform for an advocate of legalized torture in interrogations-- an ironic turn of events for a university that once championed "free speech".

I know, I know. UC Berkeley prides itself in allowing academic independence among its faculty and Mister Yoo's views, however despicable, are entitled to be heard...blah, blah, blah. As such, I am not requesting that he be removed from your faculty (as defensible as such a move would be).

Instead, I propose the following. John Yoo should retain his professorship at Berkeley, but should forthwith be transfered from the College of Law to the Department of Medieval History, where his views on torture will carry some contemporary acceptance.


S/name

[Faygo Kid]

1. As a lawyer, I am shocked that John Yoo teaches there.

Yoo has no - zero - respect for the rule of law. It is shocking that he holds his position at UC-Berkeley, and is able to influence future lawyers.

Count me in.

[farmbo]

4. Clarence Darrow... now THERE'S a lawyer.

eom

[Hepburn]

9. As a California lawyer, I am even more shocked because I checked....

...the Cal State Bar on him. I had a case years ago with a lawyer named John Yoo...and I was wondering if this could possibly be the same person. Well, it is NOT. What is interesting is this: There is ONLY one John Yoo licensed to practice law in California according to the State Bar and he works for Kia Motors in Irvine, CA. Obviously NOT this guy who is teaching at Cal Berkeley.

So...what the hell is this guy doing teaching in a California law school and he is NOT licensed in Calif??? :shrug:

[Faygo Kid]

11. He must have "friends in high places." UC law school alums should demand his ouster.

He obviously landed the cushy position with the help of right-wing Administration supporters, which tells me all I need to know about UC-Berkeley.

Ironic that it has been condemned as a "hotbed" of radicalism for 40 years. Just another neocon tool, quite obviously.

[kiranon]

25. I have for years to no avail. I no longer contribute to the school

[huskerlaw]

34. To be fair...

law professors don't need (and often don't have) a license in the state in which they're teaching. Why? Because they're not practicing law.

I'm also a lawyer. I went to law school in Nebraska. Most of my professors were graduates of Harvard, Yale & Berkeley. Nearly all of them were members of the bar in New York, California, or Massachusetts. Almost none of them were members of the Nebraska bar.

I teach legal research at a law school here in Los Angeles. I'm a member of the Nebraska bar and I have no intention of taking the California bar. Because I don't need to. I'm not practicing law. Presumably Mr. Yoo isn't either.

And that is the only thing I'll ever say in defense of that worthless piece of human filth.

[roguevalley]

18. done.

[Donkeykick]

2. Don't Worry.

Seriously. If they do not believe your letter, I feel that they're going to find out more about Mr. Yoo eventually. Let them learn the hard way. ;)

[katsy]

3. Okay - you've motivated me with this statement:

"John Yoo should retain his professorship at Berkeley, but should forthwith be transfered from the College of Law to the Department of Medieval History, where his views on torture will carry some contemporary acceptance."

k/r


Great letter!

:applause:

[Clovis Sangrail]

5. how common is it

for somebody to be teaching at Boalt Hall 1 year after getting their degree?
I thought Boalt Hall was supposed to be some big prestigious thing..
:shrug:

John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he has taught since 1993.

Education
Yale Law School, J.D. 1992

[mac2]

6. If Tony Blair the war criminal can get a job at Yale why not

John Yoo, who wants a king instead of Democratic President, at UC Berkeley? Anyone think the RWers are trying to change the university intellectuals to Fascists? They hate academic freedom and democracy.

Are these Yale grads not all globalists? Yale even admits their goal to train and educate their students for a global economy (emm government).

[Hepburn]

7. Figures....

...he clerked for Clarence Thomas. Need I say more?

:puke:

[msongs]

8. if he's good enuff for obama he's good enuff for me - they both support the iraq occupation nt

[Buzz Clik]

12. LOL! I nominate this for the Stupid Post of the Week. Nicely done.

[Buzz Clik]

10. I disagree with this from top to bottom.

I support the idea of having Yoo being professionally disgraced in every manner possible, and I hope we can slap him with an indictment or two.

Leave the university out of it.

[Faygo Kid]

13. They are enablers.

It's time to speak out and demand that Yoo be fired.

Would that "good Germans" had done so when Nazis infiltrated their university system in the 1930s. Yoo is of that ilk, and he is a disgrace to law schools everywhere. And especially to UC-Berkeley.

Time to air out his stench.

[Buzz Clik]

14. Now you're sounding like David Horowitz.

Unless Yoo has violated some critical aspect of his terms of employment, he should be left totally alone. If he has violated the code of conduct for Berkeley, it's their business and not hours.

If Yoo has violated the laws of this country, then we should press to prosecute him. To confuse the subject by going to the university does nothing but turn the university system into a political nightmare.

[Faygo Kid]

15. Disagree.

Don't appreciate the Horowitz comparison, but anyway, I think you're wrong. This is not just the case of a professor holding unpopular political views. This is the case of a LAW PROFESSOR being given a platform while having a proven paper trail of utter disdain for the rule of law and the rights of individuals - and not just theoretically, but actually putting his abominable views into practice.

Compare me all you want to Horowitz or those who ousted Ward Churchill or whatever. I'm sending the letter.

[Buzz Clik]

19. I never suggested you don't send the letter. Send on. Keep this in mind:

Yoo was not acting in his capacity as a professor at Berkeley when he rendered his horrendous opinions.

I suppose if you are a California resident, you might have some justifiable complaint about being upset about your tax dollars being used to pay Yoo's freight. Otherwise, you've got nothing.

[Faygo Kid]

24. I'm a U.S. citizen, and an attorney. Yoo has no place in a law school.

I believe I have not just a right, but an obligation, to speak out. We are just going to have to disagree on this one, I guess.

[Buzz Clik]

30. You have the right to speak out, and you are correct that Yoo is unworthy of being at a university.

I also know that there is absolutely nothing to prevent websites like this -- or Free Republic -- from pounding out thousands of emails every time some professor somewhere does something they don't like.

I don't support this activity, but I do support your right to do it.

[izquierdista]

16. Code of conduct for Berkeley

Probably, though I can't be 100% sure, prohibits torture. :sarcasm:

[L. Coyote]

17. A reasonable idea. What ae the rules in the UC system? Use the laws ....

to see if the lawyer can be disbarred if the lawyer did wrong. Like Libby, now disbarred.

[Buzz Clik]

21. Yoo's greatest vulnerabilities are his actions outside the Berkeley system.

As far as disbarring him, further up the thread, a Cal lawyer made the observation that this particular John Yoo is not a practicing lawyer in California.

Please understand that I am not defending this sonofabitch in any way. My point is simply that going after his university position from the outside is totally wrongheaded. Let the Berkeley students and faculty sort that one out.

[Buzz Clik]

20. I don't believe that Yoo tortured anyone or anything but logic and the spirit of the law.

[izquierdista]

35. Not personally

Just as Goering and Himmler never gassed any Jews personally.

[farmbo]

22. The US has already convicted and imprisoned lawyers for rationalizing torture...

The fact is, sixteen German judges and lawyers were tried by the United States at Nuremberg, and most convicted, for their parts in furthering Nazi torture techniques, racial laws and policies.

Yoo's memos show he is a second-rate lawyer, content to draft result-oriented memoranda based on the most specious logic. But that is not his crime.

Like the "good Germans" convicted at Nuremberg, their crime was to create legal facades behind which actionable war crimes could go unpunished.

One would think that would be frowned upon at UC Berkeley.

[Faygo Kid]

23. Excellent. The Nuremberg analogy fits.

Despite the Bush Administration's tortured "logic," the Geneva Conventions are not "quaint" or to be discarded.

John Yoo is a war criminal. Let him teach cooking or physics, but he has no place in a law classroom in my country.

[Buzz Clik]

28. Yes, indeed. However, that isn't my point.

My point is that the author of the OP has suggested we bury Berkeley with letters demanding they do something. Feel free to do so, but I consider that meddling and contrary to academic freedom. The entire purpose of academic freedom is allowing the faculty to follow their academic pursuits without fear of political backlash. A letter writing campaign with the intent of getting a faculty member fired dances along that edge.

Now, if Yoo is guilty of crimes or has otherwise tainted the school's reputation with the unbelievable bullshit he penned while working for Bush, then they should take some sort of action. Clearly, they are not inclined to do so. Although I think they are wrong, it is their decision and their decision alone.

All that being said, I look forward to John Yoo being told he can never be a lawyer again anywhere because he has been convicted of high crimes.

[Peace Patriot]

26. People who want Yoo out are not the ones turning "the university systein into a

political nightmare." The people who appointed him are. They are no better than Nazi enablers. What they have done is utterly sickening. And you can't excuse it by falling back on legalisms--just the way Yoo did, to justify torture and shredding of the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN charter, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and all human decency. Your legalism? That he adheres to his "terms of employment." Well, so did he in the blood-drenched White House! That he would be hired by UC Berkeley is an outrage! And whatever dirty, fascist machinations and corruption that resulted in this hiring should be exposed and renounced. Inviting him to SPEAK at UC Berkeley--so long as he has not yet been convicted of war crimes--is one thing. Giving him a tenured position at Boalt Law School is quite another. You are mixing the two things up--the university as a haven for free speech, and the university as a salaried, tenured haven for Bushite war criminals. This is horrendous! It was an ENDORSEMENT by UC Berkeley of the END of our Constitution! And it stinks of pay-offs! 'Serve the Fourth Reich and you will be honored as a wise elder statesman of the law, on a fat salary, in a protected, tenured position that you cannot be fired from.'

We cannot permit our universities to become sanctuaries for war criminals. This is a PUBLIC university--in theory anyway--paid for by our tax dollars. It is beholden to the people of California and the country, whose sons and daughters are dying in Iraq, whose treasuries have been emptied, whose national guards have been hijacked, whose name has been besmirched from one end of the earth to the other, whose laws have been egregiously violated and whose economy has been destroyed, by nazi Bushites like John Yoo.

You say he hasn't been convicted of anything. Well, guess who was IN CHARGE OF PREVENTING CONVICTION FOR WAR CRIMES? John Yoo! Just like a Bushite--just like John Yoo--you fall back on a 'fait accompli.' BECAUSE he was rewarded for his war crimes with a tenured professorship at Boalt Law School, THEREFORE no one dare raise a voice against him, or insist that he be fired. Bushite logic. The ORIGINAL decision to hire him was WRONG. Just as the ORIGINAL decision to torture prisoners was WRONG and illegal and heinous. You can't paper it over. You can't fall back on the legalism that a wrongful hire cannot be undone. It CAN be undone--with sufficient pressure from the people paying the bills--the people paying this war criminal's salary and benefits.

We can also, if we choose, deny retirement benefits to George Bush and Dick Cheney, and any of their appointees, and require repayment for back salaries, and any other filthy wealth they have acquired at our expense. We are the sovereign people of the United States of America. We say what goes here--in theory anyway, a theory that we might just want to put back into action, once again.

[Buzz Clik]

29. I'm sorry, but your post is so filled with hysteria and inaccuracies that I can't read it carefully.

• First, he was appointed to Berkeley before his tour with Bush.
  
• Second, let's keep the Nazis out of this, okay? There are lots of bad people who don't kill 8 million in gas ovens; and, unless somebody is actually a party to such genocide, the comparison doesn't fit at all.
  
• I made no mention of him being convicted of anything.

There's more, but I don't care to digest it.

[farmbo]

32. Respectfully, you need to keep Nazism--Nuremberg, at least-- in the debate...

... or you praise the John Yoos of the world with faint condemnation.

You state: "unless somebody is actually a party to such genocide, the comparison doesn't fit at all."

That's sort of my point. The lawyers in Nazi Germany were not actual parties to the genocide. They sat in Berlin at the Ministry of Justice and wrote memos and judgment entires. They never got their hands bloody and, in fact, begged straight-faced for mercy from the Nuremberg tribunal since they didn't know the extent of the Nazi atrocities.

But they made those atrocities possible.

That is why the United States, in perhaps a more enlightened time, tried and imprisoned them.

[Quantess]

27. I'm surprised that the overwhelmingly progressive people of Berkeley, CA haven't run him out of town

He can't be very popular there.

[Buzz Clik]

31. No kidding. They warned the fire department not to display American flags in parades...

... because they're too incindiary, but having a criminal like Yoo on faculty is all good?

Go figure.

[Disturbed]

33. Do students have any choice in regards to being in his classes?

If so, they could boycott them.

[Quantess]

37. I remember being a fairly uppity college student.

If I knew this about a professor/instructor before enrolling in courses, then of course I would refuse to register for that class.

Knowing me back then, though, I most likely would not have found out the background info about professor until the first week. I could have been oblivious to a prof's life outside class until the semester was done, or, when the news articles started pouring in, whichever came first.

It is likely that UC Berkeley students are so wrapped up in their own studies, and with their busy schedules, that many haven't had a chance to learn about Yoo's controversial stances. But then, that alone makes me question the judgment of UC Berkeley administrators, to not adequately inform their students of the controversy surrounding Yoo's political statements.

[EFerrari]

36. When MemoGate broke, there were demonstrations

but I haven't kept up with what's happened since.

[Hekate]

38. TY for the email address. My letter to the Chancellor...

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau,

As a resident of the State of California whose taxes support the University of California system, I really must ask why in God's name you would have John Yoo teaching law at Berkeley to a generation of young students who should be learning how to uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not destroy them.

Very sincerely yours,

My Name, PhD
My Street and Town Address