There's Something About Petitions          
Brother, Can You Lend A Signature?

            Given the vast number of radical petitions UCLA professors have signed in recent years, much of our university's faculty apparently follows a variation of Descartes' famous statement, Cogito, ergo sum (I think therefore I am): Signo, ergo sum, (I sign, therefore I am).

            Preliminary UCLAProfs.com research has uncovered nearly 500 faculty signatures on petitions, open letters and public statements which take a wide variety of radical positions: anti-Israel, anti-Bush, anti-war.  The list also demonstrates that a large number of UCLA professors are ardently in favor of affirmative action, and just as ardently opposed to conservative legal nominees, even opposing fellow alumni like Justice Janice Rogers Brown. 

            The list here is far from complete; it is in great part the result of simply keeping a running tally during the research on the 30+ professors featured in the initial offering of profiles.  However, it provides a useful snapshot of an almost uniquely radical pastime.  Anyone hoping to find moderate or conservative UCLA professors signed on to similar numbers of petitions will be disappointed.  For example, while Law Professor Richard Abel has signed no less than 22 petitions, and many of his colleagues have signed ten or more, their most visible conservative counterpart, Eugene Volokh, has been party to a mere handful.

            Feel free to check back periodically.  As UCLAProfs’ list of profiled professors expands, this list will no doubt expand as well.

          (Note: apologies in advance for the lack of hyperlinks.)

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