Disgraced former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will receive extra-judicial punishment next month when he is exiled to remote Lubbock, Texas. In a questionable choice of correctional employment, he will be allowed contact with young Americans as a faculty member at Texas Tech University.
While waiting to testify in Federal Court, at the International Criminal Court, and before Congress for his actions as White House Counsel and Attorney General, Mr. Gonzales will teach a junior-level Political Science course, “Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch” and lecture to impressionable youngsters on campus. He will also be paid to entice unsuspecting Hispanic American teens to enrol at Tech and Angelo State University in San Angelo.
“Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch” indeed. Inspectors General of five U.S. intelligence agencies just released a report detailing how Mr. Gonzales, as White House counsel, told the Department of Justice to take a hike. Human rights advocates are also concerned about Mr. Gonzales’ legal justification of torture and other violations of international and U.S. law.
The academic qualifications of Alberto Gonzales to teach Political Science? An undergraduate degree in the subject.
Mr. Gonzales was offered the teaching appointment by Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance, best know outside Texas as the good ol’ boy played by actor Paul Rae in the Oliver Stone film W.
Not all Tech students are thrilled by this appointment. An editorial in the Daily Toreador is titled “Gonzales hiring brings criticism to Texas Tech,” and two TT Facebook groups oppose his appoinment.
Mr. Gonzales will be paid a mere $100,000, which will not go far. He will need every penny to commute to his trials and hearings. Roundtrip Lubbock-DC airfare is more than $400; travel to and from The Hague (site of the International Criminal Court) costs over $2,000.
More:
Editorial: “Will students learn from Gonzales’ mistakes?” Dallas Morning News
“First Hispanic AG to teach at Tech,” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
“Mistakes were made – but not this time, Hance says,” Austin American-Statesman
“Ex-AG Gonzales lands Texas Tech job,” CNN
“An Elephant in the Classroom,” Huffington Post
“Former AG Gonzales Looking Forward to ‘Adventure’ in Academia,” BLT, Blog of the Legal Times
“Hiring Coup or Tainted Hire?” Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
“Gonzales: ‘I’m Excited About the Tech Opportunity,'” Texas Lawyer
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Gonzales, Texas Tech
NotionsCapital 
July 15, 2009 at 9:42 am
It’s who ya know..and evidently Berto know’s some high ranking folks at TX Tech, home to another wingnut..Bobby Knight. 😉
July 15, 2009 at 10:41 am
Dusty wrote: Berto know’s some high ranking folks at TX Tech
Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance gave him the job. You may remember Mr. Hance back when he was a Democrat — he beat Republican George W. Bush in the 1972 election for the 19th Congressional District in West Texas by “out-Christianing and out-good-old-boying” him. Yale grad Bush started acting folksy after that.
July 15, 2009 at 10:48 am
Note to Texas attorneys:
E.M. of the Grievance Project just left this comment on our Bar Tab for Alberto? post:
“The complaint against Alberto Gonzales is drafted and ready to be filed. Don’t forget your own obligations to report someone that you know is unfit to practice law.”
Note to non-lawyers: a “grievance” is what you file to get misbehaving attorneys disbarred.
July 28, 2009 at 11:31 am
[…] More here. […]