UC Berkeley protest legal 'mind' behind torture

Paradoxically, one of the most progressive law schools in the US, Boalt, at the University of California Berkeley, is also the home of John Yoo, who as ex-assistant Attorney General, drafted the memo (.pdf) that argued that the Geneva Conventions should not apply to the Taliban, paving the way for the resort to torture by US troops in Afghanistan and later Iraq.



Berkeley students have been fairly silent on the issue up until now, except for an earlier small rally. Professor Yoo is on campus and teaching. A student group called "The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!" began a protest yesterday outside of the law school building, later entering and disrupting Professor Yoo's class.

The protestors, who were led away and ticketed by campus police, were quoted by the Daily Californian as saying that Yoo's students as a whole were more concerned with the disruption of their studies than the issue of torture.