Professor Tang Comments for Daily Journal on California Supreme Court

Professor Aaron Tang commented for the Daily Journal on the California Supreme Court's denial of review of the politically charged lawsuit Vergara v. California.  The suit challenged tenure and other traditional job protections for teachers, and the Supreme Court's denial of review let stand an appeals court ruling that preserved those protections.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye '84 said that the order denying review was not a reflection of the merits of the lower court decision but "only a determination that, for whatever reason, a grant of review is not appropriate at this time."  Tang commented on dissents written by Justices Goodwin H. Liu and Mariano Florentino Cuellar that were highly critical of the majority. 

"The case drives a wedge in what is a generally cohesive group when it comes to public policy," he said. "The two justices seem like they would have ruled against the [California Teachers Association] in the Vergera case."

Aaron Tang joined the UC Davis faculty in 2016.  His teaching and research interests include constitutional law, education law, federal courts, labor law, and the intersections among civil litigation, the political process, and public policy more broadly.  A graduate of Stanford Law School, he has clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court. His scholarly articles have appeared in law journals such as the Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Virginia Law Review, George Washington Law Review, and Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.