Reversal: Chemerinsky Coming Back to UC Irvine

Capping off a bizarre few days, the Los Angeles Times is reporting this afternoon that legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky will in fact serve as the dean of the University of California–Irvine’s new law school when it opens in 2009. Chemerinsky had discussed the situation in a Los Angeles Times op-ed just this past Friday, criticizing the school’s decision. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff himself criticized UC Irvine’s decision on Friday, declaring that the school had “lost a candidate who might have been a truly world-class dean, and you did so through an approach that just perpetuates the long, tiresome, hyper-partisan myth that you can’t be good at your job if you have the ‘wrong’ internal beliefs.”

In a statement announcing the reversal, Chemerinsky and UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake said “Many issues were addressed in depth, including several areas of miscommunication and misunderstanding. All issues were resolved to our mutual satisfaction.”