Richard Ford writes of Professor Yoo's future at Berkeley:

"Such a breach of professional ethics might make him unfit to train future lawyers-- it would certainly make him unfit to teach legal ethics."

Certainly, no one at Berkeley Law is proposing that Yoo teach ethics. But as a student who took one of John Yoo's courses at Berkeley Law, the recurring speculation that Yoo's politics (and slightly deplorable legal advice) might spill over into his capability in instructing 2Ls and 3Ls is, I have to say, pretty bogus. I am no friend to the Bush administration, but Yoo as a professor was nothing but helpful, even-handed, and supportive.

No, his students and colleagues will not "make Yoo's life sufficiently unpleasant that he won't want to stay." The guy's got thick skin. He once mooted me on torture and government official immunity, and didn't blink as I argued that, essentially, people like him should be thrown in jail the moment they leave U.S. territory. I've seen him host panels with men in orange jumpsuits lying in protest at his feet.

Whatever my feelings towards Yoo's politics, his insistence that he be evaluated as a professor and a scholar within his academic environment is admirable. That is why Dean Edley's remarks about academic freedom are more than excuses, and instead, sound advice.