The battle over records related to climatologist Michael Mann is once again heating up.
A coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the American Association of University Professors, filed an amicus brief this week urging the Virginia Supreme Court to uphold a lower court’s decision setting aside subpoena-like demands from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for records related to Mann’s work on climate change.
Cuccinelli, a climate change skeptic, is using the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act to investigate whether Mann, a former University of Virginia professor, defrauded taxpayers in seeking academic grants.
An Albemarle County Circuit Judge said Cuccinelli provided no “objective basis” that Mann, who was behind the infamous global warming “hockey stick” graph, defrauded taxpayers.
Cuccinelli appealed the judge’s ruling, which the state Supreme Court agreed to hear, and is also re-filing a new demand in response to the judge’s ruling.
The University of Virginia has filed a response brief to the Virginia Supreme Court in the case, which the groups are supporting.
In more climate news, the American Tradition Institute earlier this year filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking similar records on Mann.
In response, a coalition of groups wrote a letter to university President Teresa Sullivan urging her to “balance the interests of public disclosure against the public interest in academic freedom.”
Sullivan responded with a letter dated April 21 saying that the university will follow the law while using “all available exemptions” in the FOIA law in its response.
“While the university is, of course, committed to complying with the requirements of law, I wish to reassure you that this commitment will be carried out to the fullest extent possible consistent with the interests of faculty in academic freedom and scholarship,” she wrote.
