In a letter sent to UVA President Teresa Sullivan—during her inauguration week, no less—a group of civil liberties and science organizations urged UVA to preserve the academic freedom of its faculty while it deals with requests for former climate scientist Michael Mann’s e-mails and research. [Timeline here.] The letter is available, in its entirety, below.
After UVA defeated an initial fraud investigation attempt by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the American Tradition Institute and Republic Delegate Bob Marshall followed up with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The letter to Sullivan calls the FOIA request "substantially similar to the Civil Investigative Demands issued by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli." [Cuccinelli was granted a petition for appeal by the state Supreme Court last month.]
The FOIA request seeks e-mails sent between Mann and 39 other scientists, along with Mann’s computer programs and work funded by five grants. The letter sent to Sullivan outlines exemptions for disclosing e-mails and unpublished or uncopyrighted research, and asks UVA to consider similar exemptions while it considers the FOIA request. UVA has identified more than 34,000 documents relevant to the FOIA request, but had not reviewed them for exemptions by the end of March.
An interesting note: The letter is signed by former UVA President Bob O’Neil, Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which made a big announcement of its own yesterday.
