Republican Presidential Rudy Giuliani, right, and his wife Judith Nathan, center, listen as former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson speaks during a news conference in Washington, Monday, March 12, 2007.

Hugh Hewitt posts a piece about the University of California, Irvine – Erwin Chemerinsky disgrace flap.

The Univesrity of California, Irvine is starting a new law school. Given its location and the resources available to it, it could have quickly entered the first ranks of American law schools. It had selected my friend and regular radio guest Duke University Law School Professor Erwin Chemerinsky as the school’s new dean. Erwin is a man of the left, of course, but a remarkably distinguished and accomplished scholar who enjoys the esteem of professors, jurists and practioners across the ideological spectrum.

UCI, for reasons not yet fully disclosed, has now dumped Erwin. Brian Leiter has the details, as does The Los Angeles Times.

This is an astonishing and disgraceful episode, which, if perpetrated against a conservative, would rightly lead to a massive outpouring of outrage directed at the university that had allowed such a purge to occur. I will be astonished if any reputable scholar agrees to take the job over Erwin’s broken contract, and many professors who would otherwise have welcomed the chance to join the UC system will be wondering about the Administration of such a place, even if they find someone to agree to be dean.

Instapundit has some great links, including to John Leo’s statement that the treatment of Chemerinsky is “a test case for conservatives who support free speech and argue vehemently against political tests for faculty and administration appointments.”

Noted constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky and Catherine Fisk, a top labor law professor, will join the Duke Law School faculty, effective July 1, 2004.

Equally disgraceful is the treatment that a presumed appointment of Theodore Olson as United States Attorney General is receiving at the hands of Senate Democrats, indirectly by Eunuch GOP Senators and the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a former Judiciary Committee chairman, said he talked with about 10 Democrats about Olson and that some made noises, if not outright threats, about blocking his nomination.

“I have been warned by a number of Democrats that they’re not going to let that happen,” Hatch said of an Olson confirmation. If the White House thinks Olson would sail through the Senate, Hatch said, “then they don’t understand the people up here.”

Democrats, including current Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, indicated they would mount strong challenges to Olson if Bush nominates him. “He is certainly not a consensus nominee,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “He has a very political background.”

Conservatives brushed off the Democrats’ warnings, and Hatch and Sessions predicted Olson would survive the confirmation process, however rocky.

Are the left and right both being hypocritical about political litmus tests for outstanding candidates for legal positions?

Or is this the true nature of the partisan adversarial system that is American law and politics?

Disgraceful, no matter which.

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