She said she had dinner with Drake and his wife, Brenda, Saturday night at a fundraiser and that he never mentioned it, even though they discussed a number of other issues about the school.
"This appears to be something that was extremely recent," she said. "This sounded like a very fine gentleman. I think it's a shame."
In an interview, Drake said the law school's namesake and $20-million donor, Donald Bren, had no role in the decision. "He stayed away from the decision entirely," the chancellor said.
One well-known political scientist at UC Irvine said the controversy might stir up Orange County's old image as a bastion of right-wing conservatism.
"It's possible for people external to the county to say, 'Aha. The days of the cavemen are back," said UCI political science professor Mark Petracca. "It has given people the opportunity to bash Orange County for a reputation that is contemporarily undeserved. It gives people a chance to say, 'There they go again. This could only happen in that part of the country -- Orange County.' "
The aborted effort to hire Chemerinsky is only the latest run of bad publicity to throw a shadow over the university. Seemingly at many points in its quest for prominence there has been a dramatic setback -- a scandal in its medical school's liver transplant program, the illegal sale of cadaver parts by its Willed Body Program and the prosecution of fertility doctors who stole eggs and embryos and implanted them in other women.
Drake was hired as chancellor in 2005, years after the cadaver and fertility scandals and just months before news of the liver program issues broke. He was brought in to help the university move forward.
The open letter, which called on Chemerinsky to be rehired, said, "We are deeply concerned, because this action places UC Irvine once more in the spotlight for the most negative and debilitating of reasons."
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garrett.therolf@latimes.com
rebecca.trounson@latimes.com
richard.paddock@latimes.com
Times staff writers Christian Berthelsen, Tony Barboza and Joe Mozingo contributed to this report.
