The continuing contest between Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the University of Virginia over access to the emails of former UVA climate scientist Michael Mann has yet to be decided by the Virginia Supreme Court. However, according to a piece in the C-Ville Weekly, freedom of information act requests from the American tradition institute, Del. Bib Marshall and the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Chris Horner may have hit pay dirt.
The University “…has identified more than 34,000 documents relevant to the FOIA request, but had not reviewed them for exemptions by the end of March.” The possibility that this FOIA request might actually succeed where Cuccinelli’s efforts have been stymied in court has some people quite upset.
A letter from a bevy of left-wing groups and organizations invested in the thesis (or steeped in the faith) that human activity is causing global warming to UVA president Teresa Sullivan urges her not to fall for this back-door effort to get the documents. The groups seek to bolster their case by citing various court precedents dealing with academic FOIA requests. They contend that (quoting a U. S. Supreme court ruling) the request ought to be denied lest free inquiry and the very future of civilization perish.
Oh my.
Most interesting among the signers is Robert O’Neil, a former UVA president and head of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which is famous for handing out “Muzzles” awards to those who seek to squelch free speech.
Perhaps O’Neil is just standing up for his old employer. A less charitable reading would ask where he was during the politically-motivated witch hunt that drove former UVA climate scientist Pat Michaels out of the University for harboring less orthodox views on climate change.
That’s exactly the point Chris Horner raises in a press release responding to the letter:
ATI notes that the outrage over “academic freedom” by the 12 groups was absent when Greenpeace sought similar records from Mann’s former colleague in the UVA Department of Environmental Sciences, the well-known climate alarmism skeptic Patrick Michaels. They were likewise silent when Greenpeace demanded the records of Professor David Legates at the University of Delaware, and those of Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas at Harvard, as well as when pressure campaigns were instituted against climate scientist-academics in Washington state and Oregon who were also skeptical of alarmism.
“But of course those previous efforts were different,” said ATI’s Horner. “These groups didn’t like those scientists’ beliefs or their speech. Apparently this is an objection of convenience, and is therefore not serious.
They may not qualify for a “Muzzle” award, but they certainly have earned a place in the selective outrage hall of fame.
My colleague Scott Lee interviewed Horner on the UVA case, and the rather peculiar arguments it was advancing to avoid handing over Mann’s documents. These most recent developments make it clear we need to have Chris on the show again.
