Initially, Chemerinsky was fired from being dean of U.C. Irvine's new law school immediately after being hired, because he was too liberal. But the NY Times reports that he's back as the dean.
I just saw Chemerinsky this June at the Constitutional Law BarBri lecture in Manhattan. The guy is an amazing lecturer. He stands in front of the podium, with no notes, and he recites the entire very complicated lecture from memory. I spent the first day of the lecture looking around for a teleprompter or someone holding up notes. I couldn't believe anyone could perfectly memorize such a lecture. It was sort of inhuman.
Reading a little about his history, he has indeed taken some extreme liberal positions on various political issues, but he was still a great BarBri lecturer.
The mystery is why Chemerinsky would want to give up being a professor at Duke, a top-14 law school, to be the dean of some crappy new law school. Maybe it has something to do with his liberal beliefs that law school should be available for the intellectually disadvantaged?
I believe Chemerinsky is originally from Southern California, or at least he has some ties to the area. If I'm not mistaken he was a law professor at USC and/or Loyola Marymount for a while.
And alhtough UCI may be a crappy, startup law school, what were the chances there would eventually be a building on the Duke campus named after Chemerinsky? Zip. Zero. Nada. Betcha he's thinking at UCI the chances are much better, and maybe he'll even get to see it within his lifetime.
Posted by: Gary | September 19, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Why is Chemerinsky not getting a cushy job that the community does not want him in a cause celebre, but Larry Summers can be forced to resign? Its almost like some people outrage counts more...
BTW, I have never been very impressed by Chemerinsky argumentation when I have seen him on talking head shows.
Posted by: Turambar | September 19, 2007 at 01:56 PM
Maybe chemerinsky just wants to be the top dog so that the review will change.
Posted by: superdestroyer | September 19, 2007 at 03:06 PM
Maybe they're paying him mega-dollars to stay there to raise the profile of the school.
BTW, for us nosy, yet non-lawyer types, what is BarBri?
Posted by: David Alexander | September 19, 2007 at 03:23 PM
BarBri is Kaplan for the bar exam.
Damn, I could find that out with Google, dude.
Posted by: SFG | September 19, 2007 at 08:15 PM
"Little three!"
Chemerinsky is hot.
Posted by: Spungen | September 19, 2007 at 09:21 PM
Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven? ;)
Posted by: DML | September 20, 2007 at 10:12 AM
Classic case of a good looking smart woman settling for a dumpy looking guy in
Chemerinsky .
Posted by: Turambar | September 20, 2007 at 04:54 PM