The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s case against the University of Virginia in which he has asked for emails and other materials relating to the work of former UVA climate Prof. Michael Mann. A lower court limited the scope of Cuccinelli’s request for documents, and on rather creative grounds.
That the court will hear the matter doesn’t mean it will rule in Cuccinelli’s favor. But recent reporting from Chris Horner strongly suggests that Prof. Mann has been less than forthcoming regarding the emails he sent to colleagues involved in global warming research. Horner says that a Penn State inquiry into Mann’s actions was whitewash, and that a federal inspector general’s report on that inquiry, in Horner’s words:
Horner says we should “expect fireworks” over this report. But in Virginia, the Cuccinelli/UVA struggle has largely fallen off the political radar. In an interview with the AG on “The Score” radio show last weekend, my colleague Scott Lee asked Cuccinelli about the case and what we could expect.
Cuccinelli told us that his office has reissued a subpoena that was consistent with the limitations imposed by the Albemarle circuit court judge, but it intends to pursue the state supreme court case because, “being rule of law people,” his office believes the lower court judge added a new section to the law on civil inquiries, largely because “he wanted to.”
Cuccinelli told us that the University’s lawyers have also objected to the narrower subpoena, and that his office is in the process of filing briefs and awaiting a hearing in that matter.
Just as Chris Horner describes how Penn State circled its academic wagons around Michael Mann, so, too, have the litigators at Mr. Jefferson’s university. Eventually, though, some of Mann’s UVA work product on global warming will be brought to light. Whether any of it rises to the level of defrauding the taxpayers is unknown. Still, the University is intent on spending whatever it takes to keep the flickering flame of academic freedom alight.
Or at least that’s their story. The same could not be said of the rather rough, and politically-motivated, handling the University gave to former Prof. Pat Michaels.
And there is still no word from either the University of Virginia, or its faculty Senate, on when or if they intend to apologize to Michaels for ignoring him when his academic freedom was on the line.
