Harvard hire's detainee memo stirs debate

[Rose Siding]

A new Harvard Law School professor who wrote a controversial memo for the Bush administration on the handling of prisoners in Iraq has triggered angry debate among his colleagues, some of whom charge that the school faculty did not check his record thoroughly enough before hiring him last spring.

Jack L. Goldsmith III, a specialist on international law who worked in the Pentagon and the Department of Justice, was approved by the faculty at a meeting in May. At the time, the US government was embroiled in the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and secret memos from the Pentagon and the Department of Justice establishing a permissive US policy on torture were being reported in the media. Goldsmith had worked in two of the departments that produced the memos, and while his appointment was pending, several Harvard law professors questioned whether he might have helped write them.
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''I believe that the faculty was seriously at fault for not inquiring more deeply, prior to making this appointment, into any role Jack Goldsmith may have played in providing legal advice facilitating and justifying torture," said professor Elizabeth Bartholet, who voted against his hiring.

Their opposition gained steam after a new Department of Justice memo appeared in The Washington Post in October, long after Goldsmith had accepted the Harvard job. Dated March 19, 2004, and bearing Goldsmith's name, this draft memo advised the CIA that it was legally acceptable to transfer prisoners out of Iraq to other countries -- a practice less controversial than torture, but still troubling to many specialists on international law, who consider such transfers a violation of the Geneva Conventions. News of the memo also triggered some complaints from alumni to Kagan and professors.

Several law professors interviewed for this story said Goldsmith is a highly respected scholar known for his position that international law should not always be binding on the United States.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/12/09/harvard_hires_detainee_memo_stirs_debate/?rss_id=Boston.com%20/%20News%20/%20Politics%20/%20Recent%20Globe%20coverage

[ugarte]

1. American exceptionalism at Harvard Law School:

Only other contries must follow the rule of law. I hope they shun this guy and his classes like the plague, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Supersedeas]

2. transferred to be tortured in other countries--what's so controversial?