Great Moments In Higher Education

Ed Morrissey wonders if Erwin Chemerinsky and Michael Drake will be hired for Miller Lite’s next round of TV ads:

If UCI has its way, Erwin Chemerinsky and Michael Drake may become the next Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner of academia. Days after firing Chemerinsky, and a few days more after hiring him, UCI has begun an effort to re-hire the legal scholar to resolve the controversy over his dismissal. Also, the Los Angeles Times discovers those who fought Chemerinsky’s appointment, and it doesn’t quite square with Drake’s previous explanations (via Instapundit):

UC Irvine officials on Friday were attempting to broker a deal to once again hire liberal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of its fledging law school, just three days after its chancellor set off a national furor by dumping him. …

An agreement would be an extraordinary development after Chemerinsky contended this week that Drake succumbed to political pressure from conservatives and sacked him because of his outspoken liberal positions. The flap threatened to derail the 2009 opening of the law school and prompted some calls for Drake’s resignation.

Also Friday, details emerged about the criticism of Chemerinsky that the university received in the days before Drake rescinded the job offer, including from California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who criticized Chemerinsky’s grasp of death penalty appeals. Also, a group of prominent Orange County Republicans and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich wanted to derail the appointment.

Drake has insisted that Chemerinsky didn’t lose the dean’s position because of his politics, saying that it was only because he expressed himself in a polarizing way.

Further confirmation that Drake fired Chemerinsky for his politics came from Orange County attorney Tom Malcolm, who has worked behind the scenes to repair the damage and get Chemerinsky to return to UCI. He told the LA Times that Chemerinsky has to transform himself from a “very outspoken advocate” to being a dean, strongly implying that UCI will not tolerate a dean who engages in political activity. In the same breath, he says that Chemerinsky’s termination had “nothing to do with this academic freedom issue”.

In other words, Malcolm says Chemerinsky will have all the academic freedom he wants, as long as he keeps his mouth shut. Huh?

So does that make Larry Summers the equivalent of John Madden or Bob Uecker in the old Miller Lite ads?