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A group of UC Berkeley law students will launch a torture accountability initiative next week dedicated to holding the authors of the infamous torture memos accountable, reinstating respect for the prohibition against torture and ending executive abuse of power and impunity. 

Called the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (B.A.A.T.), at their kick-off Oct. 13 the group will host a panel of lawyers and legal academics to discuss the memos crafted by the Bush administration’s legal counsels at the Department of Justice, including Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo. 

Yoo, who spent the previous semester at Chapman University, returned to the UC Berkeley School of Law, formerly Boalt Hall School of Law, this fall to teach Civil Procedures II. He was met with protests from students, alumni and activists on the first day of class. 

Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley has defended Yoo’s actions on the basis of academic freedom, saying in a public statement that the university would carefully review the Justice Department’s internal ethics investigation findings regarding the authors of the torture memos upon its release. 

Berkeley Law student and alliance member Megan Schuller said that Tuesday’s presentation is part of Ending Torture Month, a series of events and advocacy efforts scheduled to take place at Boalt Hall through mid-November. 

Stanford Law School senior lecturer Allen Weiner, visiting Berkeley law school associate professor Gowri Ramachandran, Berkeley law school lecturer John Steele and McGeorge School of Law professor John Sims will be discussing topics ranging from international and constitutional law to national security law and professional ethics at a panel titled "Tortured Justice: Why the Torture Memos were Illegal," at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Booth Auditorium at UC Berkeley's School of Law. The panel will be followed by a 10-minute film, Tortured Law, by Alliance for Justice. 

Melissa Mikesell, senior counsel for Alliance for Justice West, will also take part in the panel, which is being co-sponsored by at least a dozen social justice and student organizations, including the National Lawyers Guild–Boalt Chapter, Women of Color Collective, Boalt Muslim Students Association, South Asian Law Students Association, Law Students for Justice in Palestine and Alliance for Justice. 

Schuller said that the panel had been designed to make students more aware of legal issues around the torture memos so that they are able to take an informed stance on this controversial issue. 

She said that two of the alliance’s main goals are to push for accountability for all of the authors of the torture memos and to urge the university to open up their own inquiry into whether Yoo should retain his tenure at the law school instead of waiting for the Department of Justice to complete its probe. 

The alliance has established a separate committee to underscore the importance of accountability. 

“We hope we will inspire intellectual debate and discussion which as lawyers we are supposed to do,” said Schuller. “We are open to students who think this university is not the right forum for accountability. We think it is the right forum for accountability.” 

Second-year Berkeley Law student and alliance member Gretchen Gordon said students decided to form the group to break the silence surrounding Yoo’s tenure on the Berkeley campus. 

“For a lot of students, before they get to Berkeley John Yoo is the issue,” Gordon said. “People come to the university with some sort of awareness of the issue. But when they get here, it’s the elephant in the room. It’s not discussed. We want to change that.” 

Although some Berkeley Law School students said they supported the alliance’s effort to publicize and address torture and U.S. detention policies, they hoped it would not become an attack on Yoo. 

“I would probably join a coalition against torture, but I would not feel comfortable joining an alliance trying to remove John Yoo from teaching or to question the university’s decision to keep him until he is convicted of a crime,” said Berkeley law student Patrick Bageant. “I hope it’s not Professor Yoo they are after.” 

Schuller defended her group’s position. 

“We don’t see it as an attack on John Yoo,” she said. “We are asking for the investigation because of the violation of international and professional law. Government attorneys should be held to a higher standard. Yoo is open to have his own opinion and views, but it sends out a wrong message to students on campus—that it’s OK to violate the law.” 

Schuller said she wanted to see something along the lines of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a court-like body set up to deal with human rights violations under apartheid, which could restore the legal principles against torture. 

“The issue for students right now is not Professor Yoo, it’s John Yoo, government lawyer, who engaged in professional misconduct and illegal actions that had catastrophic consequences for human beings,” Gordon said. “When Yoo writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, he signs that as a Berkeley law professor and it adds weight to his credence.” 

Schuller said the alliance, which at its fledgling stage has about 25 members, has not registered with the university as an official student group, but will soon. 

Berkeley Law spokesperson Susan Gluss told the Daily Planet that students were allowed to form whatever group they wanted at Boalt. 

“It could be to discuss all sorts of controversial issues—political, international, medical—UC Berkeley is the home of the free speech movement and we are a critical part of it,” she said. “I don’t think any group has ever been denied permission by the university.” 

Gluss said Yoo’s classes were so popular at Berkeley that students had oversubscribed for them this semester. 

“He’s a great teacher,” she said. 

Bageant, who has taken three classes under Yoo, including one in California state government, described him as “one of the best professors on campus." “He’s simply fantastic,” he said. 

Schuller said although she had not enrolled in any of Yoo’s classes, she understood why they were so much in demand. 

“He’s very charismatic—and students want to hear from someone who has a different opinion,” she said. “It’s my personal choice not to register for his class because what he did was ethically and morally wrong. But I believe in due process, and all I want is an investigation. I can’t ask for anything more.” 

Berkeley law school lecturer Stephen Rosenbaum said he was looking forward to Tuesday’s panel. 

“Recent national studies have chastised law schools for offering curriculum that is short on professional skills and values,” he said. “This initiative appears to be a serious effort by Boalt students to examine ethical and policy issues in a conventional format—presentations by scholars and practitioners.”  

The panel “Tortured Justice: Why the Torture Memos were Illegal,” and the screening of Tortured Law, will be held Tuesday, Oct. 13, 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., UC Berkeley School of Law Booth Auditorium.