Berkeley law students denounce professor for POW memo By Terence Chea ASSOCIATED PRESS May 22, 2004
BERKELEY, Calif. - Some graduating University of California law students used their commencement Saturday to denounce a professor who reportedly helped the Bush administration develop the legal framework that led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
About one-quarter of the 270 graduates of Berkeley's Boalt School of Law donned red armbands over their black robes in a silent protest of a legal memo law professor John Yoo co-wrote when he served in the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Outside the ceremony at the university's Greek Theatre, they also passed out fliers denouncing Yoo for "aiding and abetting war crimes." Yoo said beforehand he didn't plan to attend the graduation.
"I respect freedom of thought, but I think he should abide by some basic moral standard," said Andrea Ruiz, 35, one of the armband-wearing students. "Respect for human persons is at the core of what the law is about."
The Jan. 9, 2002 memo, first reported in Newsweek magazine this week, laid out the legal reasons why the United States didn't have to comply with international treaties governing prisoner rights. It argued that the normal laws of armed conflict didn't apply to al-Qaida and Taliban militia prisoners because they didn't belong to a state.
The Bush administration agreed with that position despite protests from the State Department, Newsweek reported. Yoo drafted the memo while working for the Justice Department between 2001 and 2003.
Yoo wouldn't comment on the memo or his legal work for the federal government, but he said the students have a right to express their opinions.
"I'm happy to listen to their viewpoints. Beyond that I'm not going to change what I think," Yoo, 36, said during a telephone interview Friday.
Following the magazine's publication on Monday, students posted fliers around Boalt Hall that showed captives being abused at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, with Yoo's face appearing on a U.S. soldier's body.
Interim Dean Robert C. Berring Jr. sent an e-mail to students calling for a civil discussion. On Thursday night, some students began circulating a petition among faculty and students stating that the memo "contributed directly to the reprehensible violation of human rights in Iraq and elsewhere."
As of Saturday morning, about 200 people had signed the petition, which urges Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture and encourage the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Conventions that protect the rights of prisoners of war. Otherwise, he should resign, the petition says.
"We're embarrassed that he's at our institution," said Abby Reyes, a third-year law student who helped organize the petition. "We came to law school in order to uphold the rule of law, not to learn ways to wiggle our way out of compliance with it."
But another student who took Yoo's international law class said that even though he does not agree with his professor's views, he thinks Yoo should not be punished for them.
"He's definitely an ideologue outside the classroom, but he kept his personal views out of the classroom," said Eric Broxmeyer, 26.
Yoo, who joined Boalt's faculty in 1993, said he doesn't have any plans to resign. "To the extent that the petition goes beyond expressing views, I worry that it's an unfortunate effort to interfere with academic freedom," he said.
After leaving the Bush administration, he returned this year to the Berkeley law school, where he teaches international and constitutional law. As recently as May 13, during an appearance on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Yoo said he thought the pictures of prisoners being abused at the Baghdad prison showed clear violations of the Geneva Conventions.
"So the question is not whether the Geneva Conventions apply or really whether they're violated or not but how we're going to remedy the situation, and the military is undertaking that," he said, adding that violators should be punished and tried.
Dean Berring said the law school had no plans to discipline Yoo and that the professor's actions as a Justice Department attorney won't affect Yoo's employment at the university.
Berring said faculty members have to right to take "extreme positions."
"The image of Berkeley is the very progressive image," Berring said, "but I think you'd find at Berkeley a pretty wide range of opinions. Professor Yoo is certainly not the only conservative on campus or at the law school."