A Debate About Accountability

John Yoo, a tenured faculty member at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, took leave from his teaching to join the Bush administration, working at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. While there he authored some of the most heinous rationalizations for the use of torture on detainees in the "war on terror" in the wake of 911. Many have called for his firing, claiming that he was intellectually dishonest in his legal analysis that for the first time attempted to justify torture despite America's public commitment to the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties as well as domestic law that prohibits such behaviors.

Does tenure protect John Yoo's job?

There is an interesting debate going on at Room for Debate blog in the New York Times on-line. Check it out.