The professoriat and John Yoo

First, some good news. A full professor at Berkeley has asked the Academic Senate to investigate whether John Yoo should be held to account under the faculty rules for having advised the Bush Administration that torture is acceptable. He asked that the Senate appoint an investigative panel with expertise in

moral philosophy, professional ethics, the role of the university, international relations, human rights, and constitutional law

The bad news: the request was rejected, and with a particularly specious argument, namely that

Creating the panel you recommend to examine Prof. Yoo’s conduct would be defamatory on the face of it. Besides that, there’s the practical problem of finding committee members with the expertise you outline.

Can one imagine a more ridiculous claim that the commission of a wrong cannot be investigated because the mere act of investigation would be defamatory?

Probably you can, because that claim is followed by the claim that Berkeley lacks experts in moral philosophy, constitutional law, and international relations. I guess these people don’t count:

Niko Kolodny (Ph.D., University of California–Berkeley). His main interests are in moral and political philosophy.

Samuel Scheffler (Ph.D., Princeton University). His research interests lie mainly in moral and political philosophy.

R. Jay Wallace (Chair) (B. Phil., University of Oxford; Ph.D., Princeton University). His interests lie mainly in moral philosophy and the history of ethics.

Kathryn Abrams. Abrams teaches feminist jurisprudence, voting rights and constitutional law.

Diane Marie Amann. Recent works have focused on legal responses to U.S. policies respecting executive detention at Guantánamo and elsewhere, on the use of foreign and international law in U.S. constitutional decision making

Jesse H. Choper Choper was one of the three major lecturers at U.S. Law Week’s Annual Constitutional Law Conference in Washington, D.C.

Ron Hassner – religious violence, Middle Eastern politics, and territorial disputes

Philip Tetlock – accountability systems, de-biasing judgment and choice, and political psychology

Robert Powell – game theory, deterrence
Steven Weber – international organization, European integration

When dodges like pretending that Berkeley doesn’t have experts are used to avoid an unpleasant duty, one can say that academia is rotting out.