Edley Center in the News

“None of us benefit from making professional and graduate schools just for the rich,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “We all suffer when talented individuals who would be great doctors, nurses, lawyers, social workers and professors are kept from attending school because they cannot afford the tuition and the money is not there to borrow.”

The fate of successful gerrymandering efforts in California and Texas now comes down to a slate of high-profile court cases. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in.

“The speech Trump is criticizing simply states the law: soldiers are not to follow unconstitutional or illegal orders,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of UC Berkeley Law. “The accusation is unfounded and unnecessarily chills criticism of the President’s actions.”

“Although many criticisms have been made of the Supreme Court’s rulings on its emergency docket, one that has not received enough attention is the court’s failure to follow well-established principles for staying a preliminary injunction, which – while it may sound technical – has enormous importance,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “This has been evident in many shadow docket decisions, but was particularly evident in the court’s Nov. 6 ruling in Trump v. Orr.”

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against transgender individuals this year, allowing bans on military service, healthcare and identity recognition,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “With key cases on transgender athletes approaching, the Court shows little inclination to protect them from discrimination.” 

“Ultimately, I believe the guardrail of our democracy has to be the courts and the Supreme Court,” Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said. “If there is going to be a check on a president who has authoritarian impulses, it’s going to have to be from the restraints of the Constitution—and the only way we can enforce those is the courts.”

UC Berkeley law professor Daniel Farber and Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment weigh in whether or not California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. 

David Carrillo, executive director at Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center and Assistant Professor Emily Rong Zhang comment on California Republican’s constitutional challenge to the state’s newly approved congressional maps.

Emily Rong Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, said redistricting has long been a “wild west” of the US democratic system. “It’s brute force politics where the fights are some of the dirtiest.”

While law enforcement officers enjoy substantial legal protections for their conduct while on duty, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a constitutional law expert, told us that federal officers can be criminally prosecuted for unreasonable conduct that violates the law.

“I think the ICE agents can be sued, for battery, for excessive force, in state court, and I think they can be similarly prosecuted,” said UC Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “If ICE agents act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted.”

“My hope is that the United States Supreme Court will come to the same conclusion, and we have to expect that President Trump will comply with the court order because every president in history has done so,” Chemerinsky said. “On the other hand, what President Trump is doing and using the troops and so much else, is unprecedented in American history.”

“The Posse Comitatus Act limits what the military — or those engaged in federal military service — can do,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at UC Berkeley. “It does not apply to state forces. That is governed by state law.”

“By opening investigations with accusatory quotations from department officials and their allies, the Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scale,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, UC Berkeley Law’s Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law & Democracy.

“Historically, over decades, families have been able to come to the federal government and get relief without hiring an attorney,” Catherine E. Lhamon, UC Berkeley Law’s Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law & Democracy told USA TODAY. “These cuts ensure that no family can rely on that.”

“OCR could not afford any cuts, period, and needed desperately to add staff because of the quantum of harm in schools with respect to civil rights and the many, many thousands of cases coming into the office,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, UC Berkeley Law’s Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law & Democracy. “Nothing has changed about that.”

“We don’t live under a king in this country. We don’t give unilateral authority to the President to make decisions about every walk of life for all Americans,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, UC Berkeley Law’s Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law & Democracy. “This President is operating as if we do.”

“If law enforcement personnel take somebody and arrest them, law enforcement personnel need to let them know that they have been arrested,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It’s the only way for somebody to know that they haven’t been kidnapped. And so when ICE agents in masks without identification are taking people into custody, that shouldn’t be deemed a lawful arrest.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor John Yoo weigh in on Illinois and California National Guard cases and Trump’s power to deploy troops.

“The crucial question will be whether it serves as a check on President Trump or just a rubber stamp approving his actions,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School.

“Like last year, this term the Supreme Court again will face issues that arise from the culture wars and the Trump presidency that deeply divide our country,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

The Supreme Court “has been a rubber stamp approving Trump’s actions,” said UC Berkeley law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “I hope very much that the court will be a check on Trump. There isn’t any other. But so far, it has not played that role.”

“There’s always the impulse to punish speech we don’t like,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But the First Amendment protects all speech. Once you open this door, it could set a very dangerous precedent. What about teachers who criticize Donald Trump?”

“I’m tremendously worried,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “Using the military for domestic law enforcement is something that’s characteristic of authoritarian regimes.”

“If there is a path toward authoritarianism for the United States, this is it,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, said “no one will object” if the White House simply requires universities to pledge compliance with existing law.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky joins Legal Face Off to discuss the latest on Gavin Newsom’s ban on ICE agents wearing face masks in California.

“It’s unnecessary to do what the administration is doing now, unless one is operating like a mob boss,” said UC Berkeley Law’s Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law & Democracy, Catherine E. Lhamon.

“Change in the Supreme Court is always difficult,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But in recent years, the justices have altered how they conduct oral arguments, and they now have audio broadcasts of arguments. It is time for them to go much further in providing transparency and openness.”

“This ruling in researchers’ favor is very consequential in this moment when the Trump Administration is applying maximum political pressure to UCLA,” said Claudia Polsky, director of the environmental law clinic at UC Berkeley and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “The effect of reinstating all unlawfully suspended NIH grants to UCLA would be to give campus and the regents the leverage they need to resist and to uphold the rule of law.”

UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said, “It’s an astounding position that the government is taking, that people’s constitutional rights can be violated.”

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, said Carr’s actions were part of a broad assault on free speech by the administration, which “is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st amendment.”

“I believe courts could conclude that there is no reasonable need for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to be wearing masks other than in the exceptions provided in the bill,” Chemerinsky said. And although the legal challenges to SB627 will pose some “unprecedented” legal questions, he said, courts have allowed states to enforce their laws against federal officers despite challenges by the federal government.