Article Tags: Mann Made Climate Change
RICHMOND — Virginia’s flagship university went to court Thursday to fight an effort by Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli II (R) to get documents from a former climate scientist at the school, an unusual confrontation that will test the bounds of academic freedom and result in the college facing down its own lawyer in court.
In a motion filed in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia argued that Cuccinelli’s subpoena for papers and e-mail from global warming researcher Michael Mann exceeds the attorney general’s authority under state law and intrudes on the rights of professors to pursue academic inquiry free from political pressure.
Cuccinelli, a vocal skeptic of global warming who is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the issue, has said he is investigating whether Mann committed fraud by knowingly skewing data as he sought publicly funded grants for his research. Mann left U-Va. in 2005 and now works at Penn State.
Mann’s case has been embraced by academics across the country, who wrote numerous letters encouraging the university founded by Thomas Jefferson to resist the attorney general. The university’s governing board — whose members were appointed by former governors Mark R. Warner and Timothy M. Kaine, both Democrats — had first signaled that it would likely comply with the April order but then hired a major Washington law firm and prepared to take action.
University President John T. Casteen III said in a statement that Cuccinelli’s order had “sent a chill through the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities.”
Source: washingtonpost.com