Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

UC Berkeley prof could face disbarment
By Katie Meyer
Daily Californian, UC-Berkeley
May 08, 2009

Lawyers who advised the Bush administration on interrogation techniques-including UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo-will likely not undergo criminal investigation, according to an internal U.S. Department of Justice inquiry that was released Wednesday.

The report by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility instead recommends the former Office of Legal Counsel lawyers have their legal licences revoked.

Yoo, who authored memos supporting the legality of techniques such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation, may be disbarred if the State Bar of California acts on the report, said Susan Gluss, spokesperson for Boalt Hall School of Law.

The report, which will be published this summer, may affect his Boalt tenure, she said. Yoo is currently on leave as a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.

"One can argue about the appropriateness of someone teaching in a law school who has expressed those interpretations of the law," said Boalt professor Stephen Rosenbaum.

In the memos, Yoo argued that interrogation techniques should match the suspected crimes of detainees.

"One may not use deadly force in response to a threat that does not rise to death or serious bodily harm," Yoo wrote to the Defense Department in March 2003. "If such harm may result, however, deadly force is appropriate."

Campus and UC officials will ultimately decide whether Yoo will stay on campus if he is disbarred, according to Christopher Kutz, a law professor and vice chair of the campus's Academic Senate.

Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley has consistently defended Yoo's tenure, citing First Amendment rights.

"The dean is always mindful of the interplay between academic freedom, which is the right to express an opinion no matter how vile or odious, and the need for law professors to abide by the highest ethical and professional standards," Gluss said.

She said Edley will review the report before deciding if Yoo should lose his position at Boalt.

Boalt faculty do not have to be members of the bar, but being disbarred may cast doubt on Yoo's ability to teach law, said Kutz.

"I do not believe that the memos are professionally adequate statements about the law, nor did the Justice Department-they repudiated all the memos written by John Yoo," he said.

Stephanie Tang, an organizer for the anti-war group World Can't Wait, said Yoo's tenure is unethical.

"We think that the dean is wrong, that academic freedom does not protect the construction of the legal green light for the Bush administration to carry out torture," she said.

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