Students Assail Boalt Professor for Military Brief

A Boalt Hall School of Law professor is embroiled in a controversy over work he did for the U.S. Department of Justice that some students are saying contributed to the prisoner abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

John C. Yoo, a Boalt Hall faculty member since 1993, co-wrote a memo in January 2002 on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Yoo, at the time serving as deputy assistant attorney general, prepared the memo for the defense department's general counsel William J. Haynes II.

The 42-page document concluded the United States did not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions-which govern the treatment of war prisoners-in relation to the detainment of suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda members.

Newsweek magazine reported in its May 24 issue on the memo as part of an article on prisoner abuses in Iraq, which has set off a new round of national debate on the treatment of prisoners taken in Iraq and as part of the war on terror.

Since the report's release, students at Boalt Hall have been staking out their territory in both opposition and support of the professor. On May 22, about a quarter of the law school's graduates augmented their caps and gowns with red armbands to protest Yoo's work, which they said contributed to the mistreatment of prisoners held in custody by the U.S. military.

Yoo said he could not comment directly on his work at the justice department. He did say, however, that the Iraq conflict is set in a different legal context than that of the conflict against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and that he believes the conventions are applicable there.

The images of prisoners being humiliated by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib prison appear to be in violation of the conventions, Yoo said.

Opponents of the professor's work last week started petitions, both online and in print, demanding that Yoo repudiate the stance he took in the memo and use his influence within the Bush administration to encourage compliance with the Geneva Conventions or resign his post at Boalt Hall.

"The petition's demands, which go beyond the expression of student views, are misguided," Yoo said in an e-mail. "There is no chance that I will resign my position."

Yoo's legal analysis was flawed, said Mike Anderson, a recent Boalt Hall graduate and one of the protest's organizers. It assumed everyone taken into custody in the war on terror was either a member of the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

He also said Yoo should follow the example of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren who, in his memoirs, admonished his role in the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The petition, drafted by Anderson and fellow Boalt Hall graduate Mazen Basrawi, has received more than 200 signatures but is peppered with comments from people supporting Yoo.

Some students and recent alumni have rallied to the professor's defense and have started a petition of their own, casting the debate as a matter of academic freedom. But it is a proposition some aren't buying.

"Bottom line is this: When Yoo provided legal advice, it was completely foreseeable that the U.S. would end up arresting, torturing and killing perfectly innocent civilians," Anderson said.

Tags: