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At least that's the impression people get because of UCI chancellor Drake ripping up the contract with Erwin Chemerinsky, who was slated to become the first Dean of the new law school UCI wants to establish.
Dana Parsons of the LA Times calls it as it is:
UCI comes across like a backwater community college holding its first raffle.
Several faculty have called for the resignation of chancellor Drake.
Essentially, Drake has killed the law school before it even started. Nobody of any star power will actually come to the UCI law school as faculty, so the law school will end up as a third-class law school.
As the LA Times said, it was "cowardize", and
Rescinding Erwin Chemerinsky's job offer as the school's founding law dean was an act of self-destructiveness.
And the NY Times calls it "a disgraceful decision." They say:
The University of California system should admit its mistake and, with apologies, extend the offer again.
...
If the U.C.-Irvine law school proceeds without Mr. Chemerinsky, it will open under a cloud. Law professors and students should be wary of signing on with a school founded in a spirit of intellectual intolerance.[emphasis mine] Just as unfortunate, we will never get to see the law school that the talented Professor Chemerinsky would have created.
This whole fiasco shows once again that the UCI administration is completely out of their league here. They are indeed on the level of a community college, and are not fit for a UC campus.