JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that the rejection of Duke law professor Erwin Chemerinsky by the administration of the University of California at Irvine as the new dean of its law school because he is “too politically controversial” is the latest chapter in the post-September 11 attack on US academic freedom under the guise of protecting security …

One week after renowned legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was offered the position of dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine, Chancellor Michael Drake withdrew the offer, informing Professor Chemerinsky he had proved to be “too politically controversial.” Chemerinsky is one of the most eminent law teachers and constitutional law scholars in the country. Author of a leading treatise on constitutional law, he has written four books and more than 100 law review articles. In 2005, he was named by Legal Affairs as one of “the top 20 legal thinkers in America.”

This is the latest chapter in the post September 11 attack on academic freedom under the guise of protecting security. Two weeks after 9/11, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer cautioned Americans “they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group founded by Lynne Cheney and Senator Joe Lieberman, accused universities of being the weak link in the war on terror; it included the names of 117 “un-American” professors, students and staff members. A few months later, a blacklisting Internet cite called Campus Watch was launched. It publishes dossiers on scholars who criticize U.S. Middle East policy and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Earlier this year, the Bruin Alumni Association at UCLA offered students $100 to tape left-wing professors.

In 2003, the American Association of University Professors recalled the “still-vivid memories of the McCarthy era” and warned of the perils of sacrificing academic freedom in the war on terror. The premise of their report was that “freedom of inquiry and the open exchange of ideas are crucial to the nation’s security, and that the nation’s security and, ultimately, its well-being are damaged by practices that discourage or impair freedom.”

At a 2004 conference on academic freedom at UC Berkeley, Professor Beshara Doumani observed, “Academic freedom in the United States is facing its most important threat since the McCarthy era of the 1950s. In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, government agencies and private organizations have been subjecting universities to an increasingly sophisticated infrastructure of surveillance, intervention, and control. In the name of the war against terrorism, civil liberties have been seriously eroded, open debate limited, and dissent stifled.”

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