Holder has served as U.S. Attorney General in the Obama administration since February 2009 and is the first African American to hold the post. Holder earned his undergraduate degree at Columbia University in 1973 and his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1976.

Last year, California Attorney General Kamala Harris was the keynote speaker at Berkeley Law’s commencement. Holder has previously spoken at commencement ceremonies for the University of Virginia School of Law in 2011 and Harvard Law School in 2012.

Contact Jacob Brown at jbrown@dailycal.org

The post U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to speak at Berkeley Law commencement appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The Missing Peace Symposium, co-hosted in Washington, D.C., by the UC Berkeley School of Law, ran from Thursday to Saturday and focused on current response mechanisms to sexual violence and what existing challenges impede a country’s proper reaction to the injustice.

Law students Michelle Ben-David, Amy Belsher, Anthony Bestafka-Cruz and Saira Hussain attended the symposium as a part of their ongoing research on countries’ accountability methods regarding sexual violence.

Belsher, Bestafka-Cruz and Hussain recently returned from completing field research about sexual violence in Uganda, and are all students in the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic.

“Our research is holistic and conceptualized,” Hussain said. “We’re looking at what recourse victims have and whether there are resources available to them.”

The students served as rapporteurs for the symposium and contributed to its final policy brief. They also provided logistic aid by taking notes throughout the event, tweeting and blogging its content, coordinating with organizers daily and eventually summarizing new information and developments provided during the conference.

The students met fellow researchers and networked with senior academics much more familiar with the concepts and challenges of the subject. They also attended lectures by experts from around the world, including political activist and Nobel Laureate Jody Williams.

“In order to promote a new generation of research, we promote young researchers and connect the dots between different generations of (them),” said Kim Seelinger, director of the Sexual Violence & Accountability Project at the law school’s Human Rights Center. “Cutting-edge discussion is very hard to get in a classroom.”

Ben-David attended the event as a Young Scholar, allowing her to directly network with other doctoral students and policymakers. She was the only law student selected among a group of mostly social science doctoral candidates because of fieldwork she completed in Liberia last semester.

“We brought together a very interesting mix of experts … and our ultimate goal (was) to find the missing piece, or why it takes place only in some settings,” said Masha Keller, program and office manager at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Berkeley Law funded the students’ trip and allowed them to gain information supplemental to their on-campus studies. According to Seelinger, students had the opportunity to expand and improve knowledge they have gained from their exploration in Africa and courses at UC Berkeley.

“They are learning all this new information, and they can reflect on the field and their own experiences,” Seelinger said. “They interrogate what is really happening, and it helps them conceptualize and be more critical of the information.”

Contact Claire Chiara at cchiara@dailycal.org

The post Law students attend sexual violence symposium appeared first on The Daily Californian.

At an award luncheon, Jon Streeter, president of the State Bar of California, presented Choper with the 2012 Bernard E. Witkin Medal. Sreeter said Choper has been committed to public service through his teaching at a leading public university.

“We try to recognize someone who through a lifetime of service has made a huge difference to the law and the justice system,” said Streeter, who is Choper’s former student. “He has for decades been one of the leading scholars in constitutional law and is well known to academics and judges.”

Choper has long contributed to scholarship analyzing the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in judicial review. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law in 1960, Choper served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Choper joined the UC Berkeley School of Law faculty in 1965 after a brief faculty appointment at the University of Minnesota Law School. He served as dean of UC Berkeley’s law school between 1982 and 1992 and continues to teach at the school as the Earl Warren Professor of Public Law, a position he has held since 1991. Throughout his academic career, Choper has taught as a visiting professor at universities worldwide, including Harvard Law School, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, among others.

He has also published numerous books exploring the role of judicial review, including one that received the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1982. As a result of his scholarship, Choper is also often quoted in articles and reports on Supreme Court rulings.

“He is a scholar of the highest order, but he has never lost touch with the issues of interest to the practical operation of law,” said Kevin Cole, a member of the Witken Medal selection panel and a professor at the University of San Diego Law School, in an email. “Through his service at Boalt Hall and otherwise, he has shaped and assisted more California attorneys than we could reasonably estimate.”

Established in 1993, the Witkin Medal is awarded annually to recognize attorneys, judges and legal scholars who have altered the legal landscape, according to the State Bar of California website. Previous awardees have included California Supreme Court justices, district court judges and attorneys working in public service. Choper said he feels humbled by the recognition.

“I am very pleased to have received it,” he said. “I have studied the names who have received it in the past, and they all have very distinguished careers. I feel privileged and honored to join them.”

John Yoo, a professor at UC Berkeley’s law school, called Choper a “long-time servant” of the law school and the campus whose work studying judicial review and the rights of religious minorities has had a considerable impact on the legal community.

“It is fair to say that in both fields, Choper has published leading works that have moved his field forward and influenced generations of scholars,” Yoo said in email.

Contact Andrea Guzman at aguzman@dailycal.org.

The post UC Berkeley law professor Jesse Choper receives award from state bar appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Bostonians placed overwhelming importance on educational attainment, finances, family support and contribution to others as markers of self-satisfaction, while residents of San Francisco tied satisfaction of their life to work, according a study by UC Berkeley School of Law professor Victoria Plaut released this month.

“I am by no means asserting that all Bostonians are one way and all San Franciscans are another way,” Plaut said. “But local environment definitely shapes people in dramatic ways.”

Plaut conducted a random mail survey of more than 3,400 residents of both cities and found that the differences in the two cities’ environments can be credited to their divergent histories, Plaut said.

Because it was settled by Puritans looking for religious freedom, Boston holds a strong tradition of hierarchy and community at the core of its founding philosophy, the study states.

“People have a lot of pride about being from Boston,” said Sofie Karasek, a UC Berkeley sophomore from Cambridge, Mass. “There are families that have lived in Boston for generations. Attend one Red Sox game, and you will realize how much of an intimately united community Boston is.”

The study found that residents of Boston feel that they must abide by certain expectations of social norms and behavior. Furthermore, it contends that social pressure and the attention residents pay to how others perceive them increase the sense of community felt among Bostonians.

Hank Lee, a freshman at UC Berkeley who attended a boarding high school in Deerfield, Mass., said he felt the pressure at his school.

“I always had to be careful,” Lee said. “Everything I did had to be geared towards a purpose. You always have to be vigilant about how others view you. Tradition was important. I had to wear ties to class and observe strict table etiquette.”

However, the study found that residents of San Francisco placed less of an emphasis on educational attainment and family support than residents of Boston. It found that because residents were more individualistic than residents of Boston, they felt less of a sense of community with one another.

“San Francisco has been a place to go to reinvent yourself, a place of unlimited possibility,” said Plaut. “This historical context formed a social norm. A perpetuation of social norms creates cultural products, perception of the norm, and group psychology.”

She said that the gold rush of the 1840s stimulated that city’s explosive growth, drawing pioneers and fortune seekers and giving the region a reputation of being pioneering and risk-taking that still exists in the region today.

“The nature of San Francisco allows people to be who they want to be,” said Laila Soudi, a UC Berkeley junior from San Francisco. “Of course social norms exist. But I am sure it is much less so in comparison to other cities.”

Contact Dan Kwak at dkwak@dailycal.org.

The post Happiness perceived differently in Boston, San Francisco, study shows appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The report, funded by the California Energy Commission, largely revolves around adaptation, which involves making changes to the California water system that will be politically feasible now or in the future to better manage the state’s water supply.

According to the report, the water supply exists in two categories — groundwater and surface water. As temperatures rise with climate change, surface water availability will be reduced, shifting California’s reliance to that on groundwater supply.

“The poor administration of surface water rights and the very inadequate management of groundwater pumping will cause major problems with these changes resulting from climate change,” said Michael Hanemann, a UC Berkeley professor of agricultural and resource economics and a co-author of the study.

Currently, California landowners have no restrictions to pumping groundwater from wells on their land, meaning their consumption is not metered, according to Hanemann. Although the California Department of Water Resources measures groundwater levels, any drop that is detected cannot be attributed to any entity in particular.

“Being able to measure groundwater levels, but not measuring who is doing the pumping, is an exercise in futility,” Hanemann said. “The first step would be giving authority to measure groundwater withdrawals.”

The study also indicates that increases in state population —  which is expected to rise from 36.7 million in 2005 to 59.5 million in 2050, an increase of more than 60 percent — will pose an additional strain on the supply of water.

“The growing California population will put additional stress on the water system,” said Berkeley School of Law Professor Dan Farber, another co-author of the study, in an email. “Some of our key recommendations include a new system for monitoring and recording water use, which is essential for better planning, and better methods for controlling the use of groundwater, which is rapidly being exhausted.”

In essence, monitoring the water supply more closely will be the beginning of California’s move toward better water management, according to Deborah Lambe, the study’s third co-author and senior policy associate at the Berkeley School of Law.

“The information those kinds of rules will generate can help California adapt to climate change by establishing a baseline of how much water the state is using and by identifying changes in both supply and demand over time,” Lambe said.

According to California Energy Commission spokesperson Alison apRoberts, the report is only one of more than 30 similar papers conducted by 26 research teams from the UC system and other research groups statewide regarding climate change research. The studies will serve as a foundation for the state’s 2012 Climate Adaptation Strategy, which is set to be completed in December.

The post California’s water system can adapt to climate change, new study shows appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The UC Board of Regents, which was originally facing felony charges in the case on three counts of willfully violating occupational health and safety standards causing death, reached a settlement that includes taking “comprehensive corrective safety measures.” The settlement also involves the establishment of a $500,000 scholarship in the name of the late research assistant, Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji, for UC Berkeley School of Law students to study environmental law.

The scholarship was created to honor Sangji’s memory, since the law school sent her an acceptance letter shortly after the accident.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba has dropped all charges against the board, although charges still stand against UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran, who was Sangji’s supervisor and who still faces three felony charges. Both the regents and Harran were originally charged and had a criminal case filed against them in December 2011.

“The defendants were charged with three felony counts of violating occupational health and safety standards,” reads the district attorney’s press release. “The criminal case continues against Harran, 43, who faces 4-1/2 years in prison if convicted.”

Sangji’s sweater caught on fire in the lab and melted onto her skin when she was transferring a chemical from one sealed container to another. She died 18 days later from burn injuries.

“The young woman (Sangji), was not wearing a protective lab coat when transferring highly flammable tert-Butyllithium, which spilled from a syringe and ignited,” reads the district attorney’s press release. “She died from her injuries 18 days after the fire, on Jan. 16, 2009.”

According to a campus press release, UCLA has expanded its lab safety policies and inspections since the accident, and will also continue working to establish a lab safety program and policies for all 10 UC campuses.

The post Charges dropped against UC regents in lab assistant death appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Members of the Bay Area chapter of national anti-war group World Can’t Wait are calling for protesters to speak out and bring signs and orange ribbons — items that represent protest according to the SF Bay World Can’t Wait website — to distribute to graduates and their guests.

“John Yoo teaching constitutional law to the next generation of lawyers and judges is a perverse mockery of what a law school education should be,” said World Can’t Wait spokesperson Stephanie Tang in a press release. “Yoo’s infamous disregard for, and destruction of, basic legal principles under the U.S. Constitution and international law, including the Geneva Conventions, renders him unfit to teach.”

Yoo, who is also a former deputy assistant attorney general, came under heavy scrutiny for authoring memos to the Bush administration concluding that an interrogation technique must cause damage equal “to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function” to be considered torture.

A federal appeals court last Wednesday threw out convicted terrorist Jose Padilla’s lawsuit accusing Yoo of authorizing illegal interrogation methods, ruling that because the definition of torture remained unsettled at the time Yoo authored the memos, he is protected from such lawsuits.

“(E)veryone needs a hobby,” Yoo said in an email. “For denizens of Berkeley, protesting makes for a neat distraction from working.”

Christopher Yee is an assistant news editor.

The post Group to protest Yoo’s employment at law school commencement appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The report — which was commissioned by UC President Mark Yudof and includes 50 policy recommendations — suggests that UC campus administrators and police focus on mediating conflicts with protesters through “relationship building” and improve training for officers on civil disobedience.

At a press conference Friday, the authors of the analysis — UC General Counsel Charles Robinson and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley — added that the primary goal of campuses in responding to protests should be ensuring that the UC’s central mission of “teaching and research and not policing” is maintained.

“At the UC, we have an important tradition of free speech and protest,” Edley said. “(Protests) play a significant role in the education and maturation that students go through.”

The report also states that in their responses to protests, campus administrators should rely on the home campus’s police department and departments from other UC campuses before calling in mutual aid from neighboring cities, which would ensure that the police tactics used are conducive to preserving the campus’s primary goals of teaching and researching.

“The most salient difference (between municipal police and campus police) … in our circumstance, is that the primary value is on (the) academic mission and making decisions in light of how they will affect academic mission,” Edley said. “If the campus community feels that a different kind of caution is required, that is why we have campus police, instead of municipal police.”

The report also asks protesters to take responsibility for their actions and consider the scale of impact a protest may have on the campus community. Because civil disobedience involves violating laws, protesters should understand that engaging in it will generally have consequences, the report states.

After videos and photographs of police using batons against students at an Occupy Cal protest at UC Berkeley and pepper-spray against student protesters at UC Davis in November went viral, the handling of mass student demonstrations by campus administrators and police officers was the subject of widespread criticism from both observers and subsequent investigations into the responses.

An operational review of the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protests released in March criticized UC Berkeley administrators’ handling of the protests, but concluded that police baton use was within reason. An investigation to the pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis also criticizing campus administrators called the UC Davis Police Department “dysfunctional” and found that weak communication between department and senior administrators led to the pepper-spraying incident “that could have been prevented.”

In February, the campus announced the creation of a campuswide Protest Response Team and stressed that the campus should encourage effective communication between protesters and faculty members and attempt to ensure that any decision to authorize police engagement will be made only by a fully briefed senior administrator on-site during police actions.

Among other changes, UC Davis administrators commissioned a task force to review campus policies related to protests and released an action plan to increase students’ role in police functions and updated of the campus emergency operations plan in response to the investigation’s findings released in April.

Yet, Edley said that this review, previously published reviews and others that will come in the future will not solve all the problems surrounding responses to protests, as “new mistakes” will continue to be made.

“This is not the type of thing you can do once, and then there will be reports forever,” he said. “Each hopefully will build upon earlier ones and through it all there should be a way to keep us focused on the central mission, and that is teaching and research and not policing.”

Amruta Trivedi is the lead academics and administration reporter.

The post Report calls for UC to clarify protest policies appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The post Video: Al Gore video chats with law class appeared first on The Daily Californian.

According to Susan Gluss, spokesperson for the law school, the law school plans to hold a number of events later this year that will “showcase the law school’s leadership in legal education,” such as a 100th anniversary gala in November.

The law school was founded by William Carey Jones. Jones, a graduate of the campus in 1875, taught the campus’ first law class in 1882 and subsequently pushed for a law building on campus as the program grew more popular.

Since then, the law school has grown to include 12 research centers which “tackle society’s toughest challenges, including climate change, identity theft and patent protection,” UC Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley wrote in a Feb. 26 op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

According to its website, the law school also houses six community law clinics and three clinics within the law school that allow students to take on hands-on casework.

“This is a place where you come to fulfill the dreams you have of having a direct impact in your community, “ said Assistant Professor of law Melissa Murray in a video on the website.

According to Edley, in a growing economy based on technology and global financial markets, lawyers will have to understand a variety of disciplines in addition to law – including science, economics and business strategy.

“Our 21st century public mission is not simply serving Californians or even Americans but being global citizens,” Edley wrote in the op-ed. “We need to think about the kind of legal culture and legal problem solving that all of humanity needs. America’s future security and prosperity depend upon it.”

The post UC Berkeley School of Law to celebrate 100-year anniversary in November appeared first on The Daily Californian.