Yoo, who has taught at a number of universities around the world, said he was eager for the chance to spend time on a smaller, newer campus and to experience living in Southern California. Students and faculty, he said, have received him amiably.
"At Berkeley," Yoo said, "if you had three or four people, weird people dressed up in costumes in the same place, that would just be like people in line buying coffee."
As a conservative voice on the liberal UC campus, and with reams of essays and articles blasting him, Yoo said he is accustomed to being in the minority.
"I certainly don't get upset about being criticized," said Yoo, sitting in his fourth-floor campus office. "I would feel I wasn't doing my job as an academic if I wasn't writing or saying things that other people disagreed with."
For the most part, students at the Chapman law school have taken Yoo's presence in stride. Even those who don't agree with Yoo's conservative-leanings aren't mobilizing for his ouster. Rather, they seem to welcome his policy experience.
"I think it's interesting to have him there," said Billy Essayli, a second-year law student who heads the campus California Republican Lawyers Assn. Still, Essayli conceded that he was surprised there wasn't a greater public outcry at Yoo's arrival in January.
Chapman law professor M. Katherine B. Darmer "vehemently" opposes Yoo's ideas on broad executive power, but respects that he has taken responsibility for his views. However, she wrote in an e-mail: "There are many other faculty members -- including others on the political right -- whom I personally would have chosen rather than someone who is so closely associated with the use of tactics such as waterboarding."
The Berkeley City Council, for one, isn't crazy about Yoo. In December, city leaders agreed to send a letter to the U.S. attorney general supporting prosecution of Yoo and other Bush administration officials for war crimes, and urged UC Berkeley to fire him if he is convicted of human rights violations.
A spokeswoman for Berkeley Law said that the university respects city officials' opinions but that the city can't direct university policy. Most agitation against Yoo comes from the community, rather than students, although some law students have worn armbands against Yoo at graduation, said spokeswoman Susan Gluss. Outside protesters crashed one of Yoo's classes at Berkeley several years ago and were escorted out by police; he's been a faculty member there since 1993.
The anti-war activist group World Can't Wait has been most active in organizing against Yoo. The group maintains a website in protest, FireJohnYoo.org, and hopes to stage panels and distribute petitions at Chapman.
Yoo's ouster is more relevant than ever, according to organizers, as last month President Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and secret CIA prisons, and barred torture.
For his part, Yoo has stayed true to form since arriving at Chapman: Last month, he wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal criticizing President Obama, saying he had opened the door to future terrorist acts in the U.S.
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susannah.rosenblatt@ latimes.com
