The Daily Californian's Senior Editorial Board has recommended that campus administrators place Professor Yoo "on leave until the legal authorities determine whether the memos constitute criminal action" (The Yoo Question, April 28, 2009).

Although the Daily Cal's editors do not mention compensation, they cannot be suggesting that Professor Yoo be placed on leave without pay. To take away somebody's job for an indefinite period without proof of wrongdoing would be to exact punishment before guilt was shown. The editors have said this would be wrong: "this Board, campus administrators and the Academic Senate should not be the ones who decide if he's guilty of anything."

Moreover, Academic Personnel Manual (APM) sections 015 and 016 do not allow the campus to place a faculty member involuntarily on leave without pay (let alone fire a tenured professor-only the Regents can do that). Suspension without pay is a sanction, and discipline may be imposed only after the steps set forth in the APM and Academic Senate Bylaw 336 have been completed and misconduct has been proven. That process typically takes at least a year.

The editors apparently think that the campus should not even start down this path unless the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility recommends criminal prosecution, the Attorney General decides to prosecute, and a federal court determines that a crime was committed. Those events, were they to occur, could easily consume another year.

So the Daily Cal's editors seem to be recommending a prolonged leave with pay for Professor Yoo. Most of us would love an open-ended sabbatical at full salary. But how could the campus justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in this way, especially in lean times? Professor Yoo's teaching and service have always been above reproach. His advanced civil procedure course for fall 2009 is currently oversubscribed, with 123 students enrolled and more on the wait list.

It is doubtful that the Law School could find an equally able instructor to replace him this late in the planning cycle, and hiring a visitor, even if possible, would be quite costly. Perhaps the editors think that students who want to take Professor Yoo's classes should be forced to take less useful courses instead, though that hardly seems a sympathetic policy.

There is a further problem. As APM section 016 makes plain, a Chancellor may place a faculty member on involuntary leave with pay only in rare circumstances (which do not appear to be present here) and only if he initiates disciplinary procedures against the faculty member. But the Daily Cal's editors have said that the administration should not begin disciplinary proceedings until a decision is made by "the legal authorities." The editors cannot have it both ways.

As Law Dean Christopher Edley has repeatedly said, the right course for now is to wait and see what happens in Washington. The Justice Department's report probably will be released this summer, and recent press reports based on leaked information suggest that no criminal prosecution will occur. If that turns out to be true, it will be very hard for the campus to impose serious discipline.