Law school dean hired, then fired for being liberal; I know the feeling

Okay, now this is something about which I actually know a thing or two.

The chancellor of the University of California, Irvine flew cross-country yesterday to fire the man he'd hired a week before as the first dean of UCI's new law school.

About a week ago, Erwin Chemerinsky, the well-known constitutional law scholar at Duke, signed a contract to be the inaugural Dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine.

Yesterday, the Chancellor of [UCI] flew to Durham and fired Chemerinsky, saying that he had not been aware of how Chemerinsky's political views would make him a target for criticism from conservatives.

It is quite amazing that in a purportedly liberal state like California, the Chancellor of a major UC campus has apparently caved into political pressure from conservatives, even though, on the merits, Chemerinsky was a far more prominent scholar than the University had any reason to suppose it would be able to land for a brand new law school.

Liberal state or conservative state, the idea of firing (or "unhiring") someone for their political views is abominable.

I should know. It almost happened to me.

I've never told this story publicly, but what the hell. It needs to be told.

Back when I was working and living in Brevard County, one of Florida's most insidious bastions of wingnuttery, I hadn't been there a month when one of our board members took me aside and warned me, essentially, that I needed to keep my progressive political views to myself.

As I later pieced the story together, it seems one of our other board members was an avowed wingnut whose wife had for many years been, well, let's say a prominent supporter of the Bush clan (George, Jeb!, and Drunky). That board member, himself no slouch when it came to suckling at the teat of the Bush crime syndicate, apparently had Googled me when I was hired and discovered that I had worked on the Howard Dean campaign as a lead volunteer during 2003 and 2004 (UPDATE 1:27 pm 9/13/07: my work on the Dean campaign was in another state, not Florida).

He called my boss, the CEO of the place where I worked, and basically demanded that I be fired, or "unhired," as I hadn't started work there yet. My boss, a moderate Republican (whom I later came to despise for other reasons), told the board member as gently as he could (since this was in essence his boss) that he could not and would not do that. And so I moved to Brevard County and discovered that, indeed, my progressive politics were a stain on my reputation for the entire time that I lived and worked there.

So, while I wasn't "fired" like Chemerinsky, I know a little about how he feels. And I know firsthand that conservatives -- excuse me, wingnuts -- will stop at nothing to debase, disgrace, and destroy progressives and liberals.

And people ask me why I fight ...