Department of Justice, Laurence Tribe, Law Professors

Larry Tribe Leaving DOJ Because His Brain Hurts

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Harvard Law School professor and liberal intellectual icon Laurence Tribe is leaving the Department of Justice early because of symptoms related to his brain tumor.

(Oh, stop your gasping, it’s a benign brain tumor. I can make jokes about benign brain tumors in headlines.)

Tribe, a person who is most definitely as smart as he thinks he is, specifically highlighted his medical condition as the reason for his departure. Apparently he does not want anybody to think that he’s leaving because of his leaked letter to President Obama about Justice Sotomayor’s abilities. I’d imagine he also didn’t want to give the impression that he’s abandoning a president who is not nearly as liberal as many hoped he would be. (Or that he’s still mad over the elevator incident at the Georgetown Safeway.)

According to the HLS press release the tumor that will cut short his public service still allows him to teach at the second-best law school in the country….

Maybe if Obama had come up with a better health care plan, he could have kept his constitutional law mentor at the DOJ:

Carl M. Loeb University Professor Laurence H. Tribe, currently serving as the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice in the Justice Department, will return to the Harvard Law School faculty in January and resume teaching in the 2011-12 academic year.

Recurring symptoms of a benign brain tumor first diagnosed and treated in 2008 led Tribe to inform Harvard Law School and the Justice Department in mid-September that he would be cutting short the two-year leave he took to serve in the Obama administration, in order to resume a treatment regimen at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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All kidding aside, we of course wish Professor Tribe nothing but the best. With Four Loko off the shelves, Mass General should have all the time it needs to keep this man healthy. The man is brilliant. He would only belong in Washington if he had a permanent job at One First Street.

Welcome back to Cambridge, Professor Tribe. You were missed.

Laurence Tribe to return to Harvard Law School in January [Harvard Law School]
Laurence Tribe Leaves DOJ Job, Cites Symptoms of Brain Tumor [ABA Journal]

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