Daily Californian April 15, 2008: Protesters Disrupt Yoo Lecture
John
Yoo (right) joined a panel discussion on privacy rights with David
Cole. Protesters from World Can’t Wait shouted ‘torture’ at Yoo.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Category: News > University > Academics and Administration
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Boalt
Hall School of Law professor John Yoo, who authored memos for the Bush
administration that many have said condone torture, spoke yesterday
near campus as protesters wearing orange jumpsuits and bags over their
heads shouted “torture” at him.
As Yoo spoke yesterday at the Bancroft Hotel, members of World
Can’t Wait, a group that aims to “drive out the Bush regime,” disrupted
the lecture by yelling inside and outside the building. Yoo did not
speak on matters directly related to the memos.
“We are demonstrating and giving a voice to the torture victims
of the Bush administration,” said Stephanie Tang, a spokesperson for
the organization. “Yoo wrote the memos that allowed (the
administration) to shred to pieces the Geneva Convention.”
iUC Berkeley has come under criticism for not dismissing Yoo, who is considered
a “war criminal” by some legal experts for the arguments on torture he
wrote while working at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of
Justice from 2001-03. Yoo has been teaching at Boalt since 1993 and
received his tenure in 1999.
“In his professional capacity as a lawyer, he violated the
American Bar Association’s code of ethics,” said Thomas Reifer, a
University of San Diego sociology professor who is writing a book on
the question of torture in constitutional and international law.
Boalt dean Christopher Edley released a statement last week
defending Yoo’s appointment at the law school while disagreeing with
Yoo’s analysis in the torture memoranda.
“Assuming one believes as I do that Professor Yoo offered bad
ideas and even worse advice during his government service, that
judgment alone would not warrant dismissal or even a potentially
chilling inquiry,” he wrote.
Two memoranda written by Yoo seek to provide the legal basis
for interrogation and detention techniques such as torture. The second
memo, which contains 81 pages of detailed legal argument, was only
disclosed two weeks ago.
Yoo’s memos aim to redefine the meaning of torture to include
only actions that lead to bodily organ failure or death, Reifer said.
According to Reifer, the memos also said the techniques can
only be defined as torture if the intention of the interrogator is
physical harm. Therefore, if used only to obtain information,
interrogation techniques cannot be considered torture.
“(Yoo) figured out a crafty way to sidestep the law,” he said.
Yoo could not be reached for comment.
Though Edley disagreed with Yoo’s legal analysis, he wrote that
Yoo is not the one who bears the brunt of the responsibility for any
torture conducted under the administration.
“Yes, it does matter that Yoo was an adviser, but President
Bush and his national security appointees were the deciders,” Edley
wrote.
Professor emeritus of law Robert H. Cole, who has been a vocal
opponent of the torture policy and was the only Boalt faculty member to
protest against Yoo when the first memo became public two years ago,
said the law school has not done enough to address the issue in
previous years.
“The law school has swept the entire thing under the rug for
years. This has given people the impression the law school is
indifferent to torture,” Cole said. “(Edley) has brought the matter out
into the open … and this is a very good development.”
Edley’s statement comes after the National Lawyers Guild, a
progressive law association with a chapter at Boalt, called for Yoo’s
dismissal last week.
“Our tax money is going to pay the salary of a war criminal,” said Marjorie Cohn, the guild’s president.
Despite his vocal opposition to Yoo, Cole said he understands Edley’s position in the statement.
“I agree with the dean that the standard for dismissing someone
is very high and the dean’s response is realistic and reasoned,” he
said.
He added that he is less concerned with Yoo’s fate and more so with a decline in the value placed on human rights.
“There is something inviolable about every person’s humanity,” he said.”