Schrag: Why Does the University of California Keep Shooting Itself in the Foot?

The two cases, in fact, are not altogether comparable: The protests against Summers, however much he may have been in error and uninformed about the gender issue, came from faculty members, who should be defenders of academic freedom, not, as alleged in the Chemerinsky case, from outside conservatives.

If Summers could be denied the right to speak, so could any outsider whom any of them might choose to sponsor. That the regents, who already have a lot to feel squirmy about, folded under the pressure is inexcusable.

The Chemerinsky appointment revived a string of other questions beyond UC's double standards. Was there no one in the tangled UC bureaucracy who was consulted before Drake stepped into his mess? Given that UC Irvine recently agreed to pay $7.5 million in legal settlements to the families of some 30 UC Irvine Medical Center patients who died waiting for organ transplants at a time when willing organ donors were rejected by the medical center, in part because of a lack of proper supervision, you'd think there would have been extra diligence.

The liver transplant program was shut down late in 2005 after it lost its federal certification. In addition to the lack of oversight, a UC Irvine-appointed review committee blamed high medical staff turnover and the fact that two of the transplant surgeons lived 90 miles away.

That can't all be laid at the feet of Chancellor Drake, who, though a physician himself, inherited the transplant mess when he took over in April 2006. Still there were lots of warning flags. In the decade leading up to Drake's arrival, in the words of a report in the Orange County Register, "UCI Medical Center was linked to some of the most bizarre and high-profile medical scandals in recent American history.

"In the mid-1990s, UCI fertility doctors fled the country after being accused of stealing human eggs and implanting them in other women. Five years later, there were unauthorized sales of body parts from the medical school's willed-body program."

Then came the transplant scandal.

Finally, the most obvious question: Why another law school? California now has 38 that are approved either by the American Bar Association -- from the UC schools at Davis, Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles to the privates: Stanford, Santa Clara, McGeorge, Loyola, the University of Southern California -- or accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners (which also accredits those approved by the ABA).

There was once a large tuition difference between the UC law schools and the privates, but with the large regents-approved increases last week, that difference is narrowing rapidly. So what was it besides UC's pursuit of status and the $20 million start-up gift from Irvine Company Chairman Donald Bren? At least the law school won't kill anybody.

Peter Schrag is the former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. This article is published with his permission.