Jutta Heckhausen, secretary of the academic senate, said the faculty panel would probably meet behind closed doors next week and might consider making a formal statement against the chancellor.
In the meantime, officials leading the launch of the law school said the decision makes it likely the school will not be ready to accept its first class as scheduled in 2009.
In order to meet the target, plans called for a dean to be in place this fall and for six to eight senior faculty members to then be hired this academic year. The search for Chemerinsky took nine months before a formal agreement was reached, and search committee members said they would now probably start again from scratch.
"We had three other finalists, and one of them would have definitely done it a week ago," said psychology professor Elizabeth F. Loftus, a member of the committee. "If you asked them today, I don't know. I don't think the law school will be derailed, but who knows what's going to happen next?"
Although Drake has denied that he took action under pressure from conservatives, Loftus said Thursday that the chancellor told the committee during an emergency meeting Wednesday night that he was forced to make the decision by outside forces whom he did not name. A second member of the committee confirmed Loftus' account to The Times but asked to remain anonymous.
"I asked whether it was one or two voices or an avalanche, and the answer is that it was an avalanche," Loftus said. "But we are not supposed to capitulate to that in the world of academic freedom."
Chemerinsky said that in their final conversation Tuesday morning, Drake told him significant opposition to his hiring had developed but did not specify who the critics were.
"We just agreed that in the public statement, we'd say that I had proven too politically controversial," said Chemerinsky, now of Duke University and formerly of USC.
Drake told him that the appointment would prompt "a bloody fight" within the UC Board of Regents and that "if we won, it would damage the law school," Chemerinsky said. ". . . He said, 'I knew you were liberal, but I didn't realize how controversial you'd be.' He said, 'I didn't realize there would be conservatives out to get you.' "
Chemerinsky said that when he was interviewed by Drake in June, the two men discussed how an administrator or dean needs to be careful about public statements and the potential effect of those statements on the institution he or she leads. But Chemerinsky said Drake never told him he couldn't write opinion pieces.
