UC Berkeley trains the next generation of leftist attorneys
Hudson Crozier
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Conservative officials at the state level have increasingly focused on reforming higher education. What the University of California, Berkeley just did reminds us why the influence of universities is a big deal for society.
Berkeley’s School of Law has hired disgraced former prosecutor Chesa Boudin as executive director of its new criminal justice center. As the district attorney of San Francisco, Boudin made his mark as the “reform”-minded prosecutor, pushing leniency for even violent criminals. San Francisco voters got so sick of it that they ousted Boudin in what became the first recall of a district attorney in the city’s history.
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Boudin implemented what was considered the “most progressive” bail policy in the country by eliminating it entirely and reducing pretrial detention. Seeing himself as an advocate of the homeless, he condemned the prosecution of “quality-of-life” crimes such as public urination or blocking a sidewalk. Perhaps Boudin’s most well-known move was illegally refusing to enforce California’s “three strikes” law because it disproportionately affected blacks (allegedly). That allowed a repeat offender back on the streets to kill two innocent women in a hit-and-run.
During his tenure, liberal media quibbled about whether or not Boudin’s policies actually caused crime to rise. But no one could contest that he failed to stop rising crime. What ordinary people who lived under his policies see as destructive, however, academia sees as heroic.
Berkeley will pay Boudin $210,000 a year to lead the criminal justice center, which will “provide support for teaching, research, and practice in criminal legal reform … and tackle projects to address foundational problems — including structural inequities related to poverty and racism.”
The law school praised Boudin as someone who “has thought deeply about the system” and “spent his whole life grappling with incarceration and its far-reaching consequences.”
Indeed, prosecutors in this rising movement are so caught up in social justice navel-gazing that they struggle to be prosecutors at all. Their preoccupation with how society may have failed a criminal makes them too reluctant to pursue punishment.
While acting like a second defense team for defendants, these attorneys aggressively prosecute the supposed evils of “the system.” In this legal movement, what is really on trial is the meaning and purpose of justice itself. The fact that it is impartial and that punishment is very often an effective deterrence are challenged.
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If you’re wondering where this all came from, as with most leftist ideas now prevalent in America, academics helped enormously in advancing it. Critical race theory, which Berkeley law has defended, originated in Harvard Law School. Berkeley is now training the next wave of radical attorneys who will advance “social justice” for groups perceived as marginalized. At the forefront is a man who made much of that agenda a reality, saw disastrous results, and is seemingly unapologetic about it. Cities will live with the consequences for a long time.
Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.