Univ of Arizona

<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; border-width: 0px 0px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(181, 18, 27); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">= </font></h2><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">220 an </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">‘This decision is grave’: Here’s how Trump’s White House gave the green light to a dangerous chemical linked to fetal heart defects</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Donald J. Trump listens to a reporter’s question after his announcement of the proposed changes to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Written by Alex Henderson March 2, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), founded half a century ago in 1970, has existed under nine different presidents including Donald Trump. One of the people who has been encouraging the EPA to weaken its environmental standards is John DeSesso, who has a long history of lobbying on behalf of chemical companies.</b> And science reporter Elizabeth Shogren, in an article for Reveal News, describes DeSesso’s campaign to persuade the EPA that trichloroethylene or TCE — a toxic chemical linked to fetal heart defects — is perfectly safe.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>DeSesso, </b>Shogren reports, met with “a dozen EPA scientists and officials” in the hope of convincing them that TCE is not dangerous. According to Shogren, DeSesso has “primarily earned his living” as a “contract scientist for chemical companies and their trade associations, promoting their positions on toxic chemicals from arsenic to Roundup. As cancer clusters, immune disorders and fetal abnormalities mounted in communities contaminated by TCE, DeSesso was paid to cast doubt on the research establishing TCE’s toxic effects on the human body.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In making his case for TCE to the EPA, Shogren notes, DeSesso set out to “undercut” a 2003 study that was led by scientist Paula Johnson for the University of Arizona and was “a landmark in establishing that TCE exposure at trace levels was highly toxic to developing embryos.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> John’s study, according to Shogren, “had been pivotal in past EPA evaluations of TCE’s risks.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In February, the EPA released an evaluation of the effects of TCE — one that, Shogren warns, “appears to show the influence of DeSesso and his chemical company sponsors.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Dismissing the findings of the Johnson study and decades of scientific research, the published evaluation rejects fetal heart malformations as a benchmark for unsafe exposure levels to TCE,” Shogren observes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, told Reveal News, “This decision is grave. It not only underestimates the lifelong risks of the chemical, especially to the developing fetus — it also presents yet another example of this administration bowing to polluters’ interests over public health.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">End of the cases — Schnare forced to give back his piggy bank</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On August 27, 2018, a Virginia state judge entered an order <span style="font-weight: 700;">(<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2780437%20Court%20Docs.Excerpts_Redacted.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">view excerpts</a>)</span> declaring that the “Parties have entered into a Settlement Agreement” under which Schnare and his co-defendant Chaim Mandelbaum, another attorney who joined <span class="caps">FMELC</span>, would return $630,000.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The judge dismissed the three related cases “with prejudice,” meaning do not come back, but it is worth examining the cases to get more insight into Schnare's behavior.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schnare wastes scientists’ time, but calls requests to him “burdensome”</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the University of Arizona case mentioned above, Schnare sought to use open records laws to obtain 13 years of emails from two climate scientists at the University of Arizona. The case has been cited by legal scholars as <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3140154" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a prime example of legal abuse</a>, and it has been a massive time suck for the university and its scientists.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Dr. Hughes testified it took him ten weeks to go through all the emails,</b> and he lost an entire research summer to reviewing old emails as well as losing a grant that expired. Dr. Overpeck testified it took him six weeks to go through everything and he was unable to use his sabbatical. Recent Arizona court filings in this case show that document review is still ongoing; a court has ordered that the university produce the first set of emails by November 30. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">(In the course of this University of Arizona litigation, Schnare also <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/03/22/david-schnare-and-jonathan-riches-mislead-arizona-court" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">filed falsified documents with the court</a>, as part of his typical strategy that imposes huge timewasting efforts and expense on scientists.)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, in the Virginia litigation over <span class="caps">FMELC</span>, in <span style="font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2780437%20Court%20Docs.Excerpts_Redacted.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">filing-2</a></span>, <span class="caps">EXHIBIT</span> B, Schnare responded to 46 requests for documents, denying almost all. Some of these may be fair, but basically, he tried to reject almost all discovery, despite his own career of trying to force far less relevant disclosures from climate scientists.  A rundown of his objections: </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
  5         overly broad and unduly burdensome
15         more convenient, less burdensome, and less expensive effort (to get from Plaintiff)
  9          unreasonably cumulative and duplicative, plaintiff already has or will have them.
  2          discovery of electronically stored information is not reasonably accessible because of undue burden of cost
  1          vague and ambiguous
  1          personal income tax returns are protected by a qualified privilege
12          has none
  1          Document attached
46        Total</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">....</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em>=</em></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2017/12/n-koch-in-tucson">http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2017/12/n-koch-in-tucson</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i>
</i></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fo<a href="https://www.forbes.com/#191c54332254" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">rbes Magazine</em></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ranks</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-koch/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">David</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/charles-koch/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Charles Koch</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">each as one of the country’s top ten richest people. Their business,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="http://www.kochind.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwr71zcmH2AIVB8NkCh0poAYMEAAYASAAEgLsB_D_BwE" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch Industries</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, is the second largest private company in the US. The family's net worth was</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/koch/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">$82 billion</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in 2016. </span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Combined, the brothers and their affiliated organizations have donated tens of millions of dollars to universities across the nation, funding research centers and educational programs, including at the University of Arizona.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Koch's have been accused of attempting to drive policy in higher education, and through it public opinion, to the political right through their university donations and public school programs. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Book brings scrutiny</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investigative reporter <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jane-mayer" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Jane Mayer</a> of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The New Yorker</em></a> released a book in 2016 called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(book)" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">"Dark Money,"</a> furthering these allegations with much more detail. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mayer offered the example of Topeka's public schools. The district, strapped for cash, allowed the Koch's to step in, and they offered their version of American History and Economics.  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">          RELATED: </strong><a href="http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/04/fearless-expression-an-expert-first-amendment-panel-discusses-how-to-navigate-free-speech-and-expression" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Expert panel addresses free speech and expression at university</strong></a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Among other things, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women was not discriminatory, and the government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession," Mayer writes. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The accusations against the Koch's are nothing new; public media has been reporting on them for over a decade. Mayer's book, however, renewed scrutiny on academic institutions associated with the brothers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the UA, donations from Charles Koch helped fund the <a href="https://freedomcenter.arizona.edu/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for the Philosophy of Freedom</a>. Better known as the "Freedom Center," it was established in 2008 by UA Philosophy Professor David Schmidtz, and initially funded by Randy Kendrick. </b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schmidtz and Kendrick met by chance, and, as Schmidtz puts it ,“that’s a pretty long story, but bottom line is she (Kendrick) saved my life.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kendrick’s motivation for funding the center was described as absolutely <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-freedom-center-opens-its-new-quarters" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">not political</a>. Randy is wife to Ken Kendrick, owner of the <a href="https://www.mlb.com/dbacks" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Arizona Diamondbacks</a>. She was part of a Koch-led donor network that donated almost <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-campaign.html?r=0" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">$900 million</a> on the 2016 election cycle.  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She left the network after it refused to attack Trump, according to British newspaper <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/15/koch-brothers-republican-donors-disappointed-donald-trump-attacks" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Guardian</em></a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, Schmidtz secured <a href="https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/freedoms-ring/Content?oid=3133482" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">more private funding</a> for the center, allowing him to hire four core faculty members. Of these donations, $1.8 million came from Charles Koch.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The center, its funding, the associated new department of Political Economy and Moral Science and a high-school course,</b> have all raised concerns within the UA and <a href="https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/guest-opinion/Content?oid=12119561" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">greater Tucson community</a>. A campus group of UA faculty, Koch of Campus, has formed in resistance.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TUSD controversy</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, the spotlight has fallen on the Freedom Center for its involvement with a high-school course. Conceived as part of the Freedom Center’s outreach efforts, the class, known as Ethics, Economy and Entrepreneurship, is described by Michael McKenna, the Freedom Center’s director, as a project of Schmidtz’s. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The course is offered for UA credit at high-schools across <a href="http://www.tusd1.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Tucson Unified School Distirct</a>. Half way through its second academic year, the TUSD governing board realized the course was <a href="http://tucson.com/news/local/unapproved-economics-class-with-ties-to-koch-network-being-taught/article_c8a649a1-5967-5260-88f7-9dfd5b90d21b.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">never actually approved</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The course received initial approval but failed to continue along the approval process.<b> The class, as well as its text book, co-authored by Schmitdz, has been accused of being unbalanced. </b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">David Gibbs, a UA History professor, told the <a href="http://tucson.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Arizona Daily Star</em></a>, “the course presents a skewed version of economics that ignores concepts that don’t fit in neatly with free-market ideals.” He described the textbook as pure propaganda.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s a worry that the indirect incentive is to introduce to high-school students ideas friendly to either libertarian or right-wing political causes through this high-school course,” said McKenna.  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though he personally thinks the course leans a certain direction, he said many people are overreacting to the content. Schmidtz echoed that sentiment.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve got people going and saying there’s an ideological problem; TUSD doesn’t see an ideological problem. And they shouldn’t, there isn’t one,” Schmidtz said. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He said the course is not on American History but on citizenship, and the high-schools understand that. The course was funded by the <a href="https://www.templeton.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">John Templeton Foundation</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tension in the community</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Freedom Center itself <a href="https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2017/11/10/a-ua-prof-chimes-in-on-the-freedom-center" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">has been accused</a> of perpetuating a libertarian, right-wing ideology. These accusations are based in large part of the sources of funding the center has received, as well as the political views of several of its key faculty.  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The donation from Charles Koch in 2010 has raised the most eyebrows. The donation is no secret. “I am associated with the Koch brothers, I have raised money from them,” Schmidtz said. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schmidtz continued to say that, no, it was not just for the one donation in 2010, but he declined to comment further.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McKenna empathized with people’s fear that the center had an agenda, based on the reading of "Dark Money." </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To the extent that what’s claimed in that book is legitimate, its really offensive and its really scary,” McKenna said. “If you read that book and you believe what’s going on in that book, then it’s easy to see what’s happened in the freedom center through the lends of that book.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McKenna, Schmidtz, and a third core faculty member, Daniel Russell, all deny the presence of an agenda within the Freedom Center however, especially one dictated by the political and economic views of the Koch brothers.  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They referred to it as both comical and naïve to believe philosophers as well established as themselves could be bought. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Somebody who needed a job in philosophy so badly that they would agree to let someone tell them what to write and what not to write, would not be a good enough philosopher to hire here,” Russell said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part of the center’s criticism has been their perceived lack of transparency. McKenna, Schmidtz, and Russell all claimed they have never been contacted by either members of Koch Off Campus, or media outlets currently publishing related stories. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re getting more attention now, as of this semester,” Russell said, “and the thing that’s a bit disheartening about this is how little information people really have.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schmidtz said he would share the donor list with the <a href="http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Wildcat</em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">. </em>As of Dec. 13, neither the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Wildcat</em> or the reporter of this story have received a comprehensive donor list. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Freedom Center: defined</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Freedom Center is a research unit housed in the college of <a href="https://sbs.arizona.edu/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Social and Behavioral Science</a>; its core faculty are all tenured in the Philosophy department. Their contract with the Freedom Center gives them a lighter course load in order to focus more on research and writing. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Straddling a broad spectrum of topics joint only by their relation to freedom, the center is not an "academic center" as the TUSD high-school course is independent of it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The center recently created a new department, approved this fall by the Arizona Board of Regents. Called the department of <a href="https://freedomcenter.arizona.edu/news/department-political-economy-moral-science" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Political Economy and Moral Science</a>, it was funded in large part by a grant from the state legislature, earmarked to be spent for the Freedom Center. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The department was created because David Schmidtz wanted to create a new department, and there were funds that became available through the state legislature,” McKenna said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russell said one of the reasons the new department was created was to be a home for faculty who didn’t fit elsewhere. “It’s going to sound funny,” Russell said, “but as a way of creating a tenure home for people who don’t really fit in any narrow category." </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Adam Smith or Karl Marx were alive today, Russell said he doubted they would receive tenure in any existing department.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is exactly this that worries some UA members. “Up until now, the people who have been involved were people who were tenured through traditional departments,” said Jeremy Vetter, a history professor at the UA. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We may agree or disagree with their work, but they were tenured and promoted through a process that is recognizable. This new one seems to be designed to evade disciplinary accountability because it’s a discipline that doesn’t exist, really anywhere else.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The root of the issues is believed to be the decline in public funding. Cash-strapped universities are more vulnerable to accepting private donations. “Its only common sense that when you take a man’s money, you take his advice. Here the advice is clearly is to slant their work in this sort of free market, far right-wing direction that would suit the ideas of their donors,” Gibbs said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Further worrying critics is the seemingly special favors from the state legislator in support of the Freedom Center. Even as Arizona has cut it’s funding to public education, the state has allocated $2 million specifically for the center at the UA and a separate $3 million for <a href="https://scetl.asu.edu/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Arizona State’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership</a>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">          RELATED: </strong><a href="http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/06/regents-approve-uasproposed-1-1-billion-budget" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Regents approve UA's proposed $1.1 billion budget</strong></a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Arizona State institute also received over $1 million in grants from the Charles Koch Foundation</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, there appears to be no evidence that Charles Koch exerts any influence of the Freedom Center itself. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You’re not allowed to find people guilty in the court of law by association — you actually have to establish facts," Russell said. "And there are no facts of the sort that would lead people to say the things that are being said about us."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although he has donated to Koch related causes in the past, Schmidtz said that Charles Koch has never called or checked in with the center — but he wouldn’t mind if he did. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I wouldn’t feel like he was interfering if he did, but he never does,” Schmidtz said.  “He has seemingly complete trust in our ability, our willingness to make good decisions. In my own experience, you can’t get as far from interfering as he has gotten.”</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i></i></font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://tucson.com/news/local/unapproved-economics-class-with-ties-to-koch-network-being-taught/article_c8a649a1-5967-5260-88f7-9dfd5b90d21b.html</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucson’s largest school district has allowed a controversial economics class with a biased textbook and ties to the Koch network to slip through the cracks and be taught at four high schools without being properly vetted or approved.</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, in the middle of the second year of the yearlong class, the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board is scrambling to decide what to do with students who are currently enrolled and grappling with the consequences of having already graduated students who technically didn’t take an approved, required economics class.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics of the class say the way it was quietly inserted into district curriculum highlights the worst aspects of both the Koch network and TUSD — that the former is attempting to fund an ideological revolution through its clandestine infiltration of public institutions, and the latter is too incompetent to notice a contentious, unapproved course in its schools.</font></p><div id="tncms-region-article_instory_top" class="tncms-region hidden-print" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I don’t think it’s ironic that such a controversial class slipped through the system,” TUSD Governing Board member Kristel Foster said at a recent board meeting about the problem.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The course, dubbed Ethics, Economy and Entrepreneurship, is offered as a dual-credit college course developed in partnership with the University of Arizona’s Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, better known as the “Freedom Center.” The Freedom Center receives funding from Charles Koch and other Libertarian-minded donors, some of them unnamed, as well as from a special appropriation from the Legislature.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Students who take the yearlong class, which is condensed to one semester at the university level, can earn three credits for Philosophy 101 through the University of Arizona at a discounted price. Classes are supposed to cover the same material with the same rigor as the college version.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About 100 TUSD students are enrolled in the course.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teachers prepared for the class by taking a graduate-level course called The Ethical Entrepreneur under the UA’s department of political economy and moral science, which houses the Freedom Center.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The course is currently taught at Tucson, Rincon, Pueblo and Cholla high schools. Cholla offers it only as an elective, which does not satisfy the requirement for a high school economics credit. The others allow it to fulfill state requirement that high schoolers take an economics class.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At least three other public school districts in Pima County — Amphitheater, Sahuarita and Vail — along with some private and charter schools, offer the course, either as an elective or to meet a core requirement for graduation.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Students are expected to learn concepts including micro- and macroeconomics, business ethics, personal and business finance and the process of innovation.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said other districts that offer the class should beware — the course, as developed through the Freedom Center, has some biases and omissions that may throw it out of alignment with state standards for a required economics credit.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It would behoove (other districts) to undergo a detailed review, to pull the syllabus and make sure that it aligns with state standards for college and career readiness for issuance of economics credit. When we did that process, we did have to work a little bit to make sure everything was aligned,” he said.</font></p><h6 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">COURSE MERITS</font></h6><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supporters of the class note that funding for the course development didn’t come from the Koch brothers, the powerful billionaires behind Koch Industries who have spent fortunes to push free-market politicians and policies. Instead, it was funded through a $2.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, which is often called a “spiritually inclined” nonprofit that funds interdisciplinary research in areas including religion, science and free-market economics.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The foundation says the goal of the program is to “help students come to a deeper understanding of the nature of success and the virtues that are required to secure it in our distinctively American context.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the foundation has big goals for the course, which it hopes will reach 25 percent of Arizona high school students by 2025.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supporters argue that while the rollout at TUSD was flawed, the controversy around the classes is misplaced. They say the course itself should be judged on its own merit, not on its loose affiliation to a controversial political figure.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mario Villarreal-Diaz, formerly of the Freedom Center but now an associate professor of ethics, economy and entrepreneurship at the department of political economy and moral science, argued that people are concerned about the center’s donors but should focus on their output and the course curriculum.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, the course teaches economic concepts that are used to explore what it means to be an ethical businessperson in hopes of teaching both economic and moral concepts, he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Villarreal-Diaz realizes the course may be done at TUSD due to the controversy, but if the district does get rid of the course as a knee-jerk reaction because it is associated with the controversial Freedom Center, it will just hurt students.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s interesting that the issue is the district approved the course without proper vetting and review, and the outcome now may be that they get rid of it without proper vetting or review,” he said, encouraging skeptics to sit in on a class.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But critics argue students who took the class have been cheated out of a balanced look at economics in the only class many of them will ever take on the topic.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, critics argue, public school students are being exposed to what equates to right-wing, free-market propaganda sponsored by an organization of wealthy business owners whose ultimate goal is to indoctrinate children and groom a new generation of free-market ideologues who will grow up to loosen regulations on business.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Gibbs, a history professor at UA and a member of Kochs Off Campus — an organization opposed to undue donor influence in academia — said the course is a disturbing example of how the Koch family and other like-minded donors use massive amounts of money to influence the educational system as a means to influence political climate.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s something fundamentally undemocratic about that process. And there’s something disturbing about the way they’re trying to instill their ideological opinion in education, particularly at the K-12 level,” Gibbs said.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gibbs argued that the course presents a skewed version of economics that ignores concepts that don’t fit in neatly with free-market ideals, and that the main text used to teach it, which was developed by academics affiliated with the Freedom Center, is pure propaganda.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’ve read the textbook, and it’s basically an effort to indoctrinate students and give the impression that the economics profession is dedicated entirely to kind of a pure, free-market paradigm, with a very heavy emphasis on deregulation, low taxes and the like. There’s a skewed representation of economics there, which does not represent the consensus of the economics profession,” Gibbs said, noting that he teaches economics history.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A colleague at the UA history department, Douglas Weiner, told the TUSD Governing Board the textbook used in the course teaches a <b>“kind of fairy-tale economics” that has no basis in history. For example, he said, the text argues that private property and patent laws are the keys to successful companies</b>.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Those things are true enough, but those textbooks completely ignore that the whole industrial revolution has been built on the foundation of plantation slavery … and all sorts of other more complex economic developments,” he said, noting he teaches economics history, and thinks the textbook is “junk science.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether the course amounts to libertarian propaganda or entrepreneurial inspiration, TUSD has a problem: It was never approved to be taught in the district.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To remedy the problem, the Governing Board is considering retroactively certifying the class for those who took it last year or are currently enrolled, causing minimal disruption to the students and teachers. But the board is going to re-evaluate whether it wants to keep its ties with the class after this year.</font></p><h6 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DERELICTION OF DUTY</font></h6></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">brennan jason libtard</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Jason Brennan (Ph.D., 2007, University of Arizona) is Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Chair and Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Starting in Spring 2018, concurrent with his position at Georgetown, he will be Research Professor at the </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><b>University of Arizona's Freedom Center</b> and Department of Political Economy and <b>Moral Science</b></span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><b>.</b> He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nat Ass S bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Arts and Culture Conference to Be Held in March</div><div>Jan 14, 2014 by NAS |<b> The Center for American Culture and Ideas at the University of Arizona</b> will hold its first conference March 2014 in Tucson, Arizona.</div><div> </div><div>U Arizona Center for American Culture and Ideas to Hold First Arts and Culture Conference</div><div>Sep 18, 2013 by NAS | The Center for American Culture and Ideas at the University of Arizona will offer its first conference, on “The Future of (High) Culture in America,” in March 2014. </div><div> </div><div>Ruminations at the end of the semester</div><div>May 04, 2012 by Daniel Asia | I have recently returned from a trip abroad.  In receiving my peanuts, pretzels and drink during the flight, I also received two napkins.</div><div> </div><div>Dollars for Diversity and Equity at U of Az</div><div>Feb 02, 2012 by Glenn Ricketts | Those agitating for social justice get a financial boost at the University of Arizona</div><div> </div><div>Center for the Study of American Ideals and Culture</div><div>May 13, 2010 by Daniel Asia | A project I have been imaging for a long time is now actually a reality. The Center for the Study of American Ideals and Culture has received its first funding, from the new Apgar Foundation. With this first seed money, we can…</div><div> </div><div><b>Ward Connerly at the University of Arizona</b></div><div>Nov 19, 2009 by Daniel Asia | Ward Connerly spoke at the University of Arizona just a few weeks ago. He was masterly. At five minutes before his talk was to begin there were only five people in the audience. At the start there were between seventy-five and…</div><div> </div><div>U Arizona Celebrates Chicano Walk-Out Day with a Teach-In</div><div>Sep 16, 2009 by Ashley Thorne | La Raza studies, teaching students that white America is the enemy, lives on in American public education.</div><div><b> </b></div><div><b>Wal-Mart’s Eco-Index</b></div><div>Jul 21, 2009 by Ashley Thorne | The retail giant teams up with the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University to find ways to measure products' social and environmental impact.</div><div> </div><div>Hey Guys!</div><div>Mar 27, 2009 by Ashley Thorne | The University of Arizona surveys: do professors and others on campus use "GLBT-inclusive language"?</div><div> </div><div>“Gender Identity” Restrooms at U Arizona</div><div>Feb 24, 2009 by Catherine Pavlich | It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman; campus restrooms at UA are categorized by self-image and behavior.</div><div> </div><div>Stop the Hate and Celebrate: The University of Arizona Purges</div><div>Nov 11, 2008 by Ashley Thorne,<b> Peter Wood</b> | After a controversial comic was published in the student newspaper, the campus will "regroup."</div><div> </div><div>Weighing the Evidence: New Studies on <b>Racial Preferences at Three Universities</b></div><div>Oct 16, 2008 by Glenn Ricketts | NAS affiliates helped the Center for Equal Opportunity document discrimination in law school admissions.</div><div>=</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">see other node </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">capt 917</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">some 2x here?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2x?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The Charles Koch Foundation also funds <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Texas Tech's Institute for the Study of Western Civilization,</span> which co-hosted an </span><a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/events/detail/western-civ-summit" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">event</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> with the right-wing, Koch-funded </span><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> that presented a panel featuring the Koch Foundation's director of university relations and the deputy director of the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch-funded Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona.</span></span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In January we filed a brief asking the D.C. District Court to protect nine National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) climate scientists. On August 21, </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=97e7f679f2&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">the court ruled in favor of these researchers</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, upholding NOAA’s decision not to release its scientists’ research documents to the conservative group Judicial Watch.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://climatesciencedefensefund.org/2017/08/25/d-c-district-court-rules-in-favor-of-noaa-climate-scientists-in-foia-case/">https://climatesciencedefensefund.org/2017/08/25/d-c-district-court-rules-in-favor-of-noaa-climate-scientists-in-foia-case/</a><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We’re thrilled by this outcome, but our work is far from done. This case is part of a growing trend where groups that dispute the reality of climate change attempt to use open records laws to access publicly-funded climate scientists’ private documents. These groups often aim to make public and manipulate scientists’ emails — including taking scientific jargon out of context — to discredit and distort peer-reviewed climate research.  </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We continue to support researchers in these cases; in July, </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=f364924a9c&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">we filed a brief</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> asking the Arizona Court of Appeals to protect two scientists from another of these invasive open records requests.</span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To learn more about how anti-science groups and individuals attack and intimidate researchers, </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=4b913d4c44&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">check out our profile of atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Her commitment to climate communication and public outreach has led to ongoing harassment and aggressive legal inquiry.</span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">n January 2017,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://climatesciencedefensefund.org/2017/02/01/csldf-files-brief-to-protect-noaa-climate-scientists/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">CSLDF filed a brief</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">asking the federal District Court for the District of Columbia to protect National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) climate scientists. On August 21, the D.C. court upheld NOAA’s decision not to release its climate scientists’ research documents to the conservative group Judicial Watch.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the case, Judicial Watch sought to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which allows U.S. citizens to request copies of government documents, to obtain NOAA scientists’ emails, drafts, and peer review comments related to a <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">June 2015 paper published in <em style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out;">Science</em></a>. The study, which is also known as the “Hiatus Paper,” found that recent ocean surface temperature increases were greater than those indicated by other peer-reviewed studies, thus refuting the idea of a “pause” in global warming.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scientists’ findings did not sit well with Judicial Watch, which doesn’t agree with the science of climate change. Judicial Watch sued for the NOAA scientist’s documents; <a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-for-documents-withheld-from-congress-in-new-climate-data-scandal/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">the organization’s president claimed</a> that the requested materials “will show that the Obama administration put politics before science to advance global warming alarmism.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOAA produced some of the documents Judicial Watch requested, but withheld others, arguing that the “deliberative process privilege” protected these documents. The deliberative process privilege allows for the denial of a FOIA request if it can be shown the requested government documents involve materials that are “predecisional,” meaning written as part of the decision-making process, and “deliberative,” meaning involving consultative give-and-take. The rationale for this privilege is to safeguard preliminary documents that, if released, could prevent candid collaboration and open discussions among agency employees.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOAA argued the privilege exists to protect the sort of deliberative materials that are the heart of the scientific process. “In pursuing a research objective, scientists may begin with only a rough idea, and then develop, test, and revise that idea as data is collected and interpreted. Possible interpretations are generated and tested in part through candid debates and exchanges among peers. Indeed, the exchange and debate among peers is the mechanism that allows NOAA to ensure its scientific products are robustly developed and accurately tested.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judicial Watch claimed that the deliberative process privilege could not be applied to scientific materials, but the district court sided with NOAA, concluding that both the case law in the D.C. Circuit, as well as the facts of the case, showed that “drafts of the Hiatus Paper, internal deliberations, and peer reviewer comments thus fall within the scope of [FOIA] Exemption 5,” which includes the deliberative process privilege.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The district court also dismissed Judicial Watch’s claim that a February 2017 article in <em>The Mail on Sunday </em>showed potential wrongdoing by the NOAA scientists and should, therefore, overrule the deliberative process privilege. In the article, a former NOAA employee asserted that certain data archiving protocols had not been completed for the Hiatus Paper; the court said Judicial Watch “cites to a single article in a British tabloid reporting, based on a former employee’s allegation” which “does not meet th[e] narrow standard” necessary to show “nefarious government misconduct.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This case is part of a larger trend where groups that dispute the scientific consensus on climate change attempt to use FOIA or state open records laws to access publicly funded climate scientists’ private correspondence, including similar cases in <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">Arizona</a> (currently on appeal) and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supreme-court-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">Virginia</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hostile groups have also targeted researchers in other fields – from <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/judge-affirms-campus-position-207666" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">biomedical researchers</a> to <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/08/29/wv-decision-on-academic-freedom-versus-freedom-of-information-laws/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">environmental health scientists</a> – under open records laws. In light of these abuses, many jurisdictions have begun instituting protections for scientific research under open records laws, including most recently <a href="https://www.thefire.org/rhode-island-takes-a-stand-for-academic-freedom/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">Rhode Island</a> (effective June 27, 2017) and <a href="http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/65-2017/bill-actions/ba2295.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="transition: all 250ms ease-in-out; cursor: pointer;">North Dakota</a> (effective August 1, 2017).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Judicial Watch has 30 days to appeal the district court’s decision.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px 1.5em; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><i>— </i>Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; border-width: 0px 0px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(181, 18, 27); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coal-funded E&E Legal – <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=6a03182cbd&e=15e3916d62" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1472836327547_76298" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" webkit-padding-start="webkit-padding-start" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" outline="outline" none="none" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word" line-height="line-height" background="background" rgb="rgb">which has a core mission of discrediting climate science</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" line-height="line-height" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> – appeared before an Arizona trial court in an attempt to extract over $179,000 from the University of Arizona. </span></font></h2><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">E&E Legal first sued the University for years of two climate scientists’ emails.  The trial court originally ruled </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=5203cc83ce&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in March 2015</a><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to protect the scientists’ emails, but </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=3788bb0bd1&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a second decision</a><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=1ece4a4453&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in June 2016</a><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> completely reversed the earlier ruling.  This new decision forces climate scientists to work within a fishbowl, where every informal email exchange can be picked apart by agenda-driven opponents – inhibiting scientific debate, discouraging collaboration, and chilling academic thought.  (An appeal on the decision is due this fall.)</span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Of course, E&E Legal is not satisfied with these outcomes alone, and the group is now trying to force the University of Arizona to pay it six figures in attorney’s fees and costs.  The judge’s decision on E&E Legal’s payment claim is pending. </span><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">E&E Legal is part of a broader group going after climate scientists.  Climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann (who has experienced more than his share of politically-motivated attacks) has teamed with Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Tom Toles on a new book discussing these "climate wars."  In </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=17462ec5c2&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;"><em style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">The Madhouse Effect</em></span></a><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the pair present an informative and highly entertaining takedown of climate change denial.  You can pre-order a copy </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=7a8f2a5c70&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">here</span></a><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and all proceeds will support CSLDF. </span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">guard uk no link</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Climate scientists are under attack from frivolous lawsuits</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is forced to defend climate scientists against constant frivolous lawsuits</div><div>
</div><div>Lauren Kurtz</div><div>Thursday 7 July 2016 06.00 EDT Last modified on </div><div>
</div><div>Today’s climate scientists have a lot more to worry about than peer review. Organizations with perverse financial incentives harass scientists with lawsuit after lawsuit, obstructing research and seeking to embarrass them with disclosures of private information.</div><div>
</div><div>On June 14th, an Arizona court ruled that thousands of emails from two prominent climate scientists must be turned over to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E), a group that disputes the 97% expert consensus on human-caused climate change and argues against action to confront it. E&E and its attorneys are funded by Peabody Coal, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources, coal corporations with billions of dollars in revenue. </div><div>
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</div><div>Formerly named the American Tradition Institute, E&E has been described as “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.”</div><div>
</div><div>E&E originally attacked Dr. Michael Mann, whose research shows a dramatic increase in recent temperatures in a graph popularly known as the “hockey stick.” In 2011, the group sued under Virginia open records laws to obtain six years of Dr. Mann’s emails from the University of Virginia—over 10,000 messages in total. The Virginia Supreme Court denied E&E’s claims and ruled that academic research correspondence should be protected because release would cause “harm to university-wide research efforts, damage to faculty recruitment and retention, undermining of faculty expectations of privacy and confidentiality, and impairment of free thought and expression.”</div><div>
</div><div>E&E did not relent. Despite losing in Virginia, the group brought another open records case in Arizona to demand the same six years of emails—this time from Dr. Mann’s coauthor, University of Arizona professor Dr. Malcolm Hughes. Additionally, E&E sued for thirteen years of emails from UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lead author Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, also at the University of Arizona.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>In court filings, E&E acknowledges it seeks emails that, in its words, “embarrass both Professors Hughes and Overpeck and the University.</b>” These smear tactics serve no role in scientific discourse, but are an attempt to distract, disrupt, and intimidate legitimate researchers.</div><div>
</div><div>E&E’s attorney also claimed that female scientists may, according to him, go on “mommy sabbatical” and then ignore their publicly-funded research in lieu of “sitting around folding clothes.” Given this risk, E&E argued that when scientists “abandon” their duties, emails regarding unpublished research should be released so that others can take over their work. E&E did not explain how to determine what has been “abandoned.”</div><div>
</div><div>Just filing the lawsuit caused damage: Dr. Hughes testified it took him ten weeks to go through all the emails, and he lost an entire research summer to reviewing old emails as well as losing a grant that expired. Dr. Overpeck testified it took him six weeks to go through everything and he was unable to use his sabbatical.</div><div>
</div><div>These sorts of lawsuits, regardless of outcome, subtract months of labor from the scientific endeavor and cost public universities hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. </div><div>
</div><div>The trial court ruled in March 2015 that the University of Arizona had provided an “abundance of supporting evidence” that releasing the emails would cause harm, and the court ruled in favor of the University. However, E&E appealed, securing a rehearing in the case. </div><div>
</div><div>Last month, the court reversed its earlier decision and determined instead that disclosure was warranted. The court concluded that:</div><div>
</div><div>[a]lternative methods of communications have been and remain available to Professors Hughes and Overpeck and any other similarly situated persons should they desire to correspond in confidence regarding research projects and like endevours [sic].</div><div>
</div><div>The implication seems to be that scientists’ research discussions should be limited to the telephone.</div><div>
</div><div>In a modern workplace, email is critical to professional communication. This decision will force scientists to work in a fishbowl, with every email exchange—from offhand notes to highly technical analyses—picked apart by agenda-driven opponents. It will stifle candid scientific debate, discourage open collaboration, and chill free academic thought. The Union of Concerned Scientists has found that:</div><div>
</div><div>open records requests are increasingly being used to harass and intimidate scientists and other academic researchers, or to disrupt and delay their work.</div><div>
</div><div>In an ongoing federal case, the conservative group Judicial Watch—which claims climate science is a “fraud science”—has sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for thousands of climate scientists’ emails related to a 2015 climate change study published in Science. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who accused NOAA of having an “extreme climate change agenda,” unsuccessfully sought the same emails last year.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>In addition to the Arizona case, E&E attorney Christopher Horner paired with another fossil fuel industry funded-group, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to sue for the emails of climate communications professor Dr. Edward Maibach. While Dr. Maibach sought to intervene in the litigation, the judge ruled that he lacked jurisdiction. Thousands of pages of Dr. Maibach’s emails were released, and plaintiffs posted them to the internet with quotes pulled out of context and commentary calling him and other climate researchers “frauds,” “snake oil salesman,” and worse.</div><div>
</div><div>To evaluate scientific merits, a critic needs final data, methodologies, and research results—not thousands of emails. The peer review process vets research results, followed by examination and replication by the scientific community. These safeguards remain the foundation of scientific review. </div><div>
</div><div>In our ongoing quest for scientific progress, every frivolous lawsuit against a scientist represents a step in the wrong direction. We must not allow groups with perverse financial incentives to jeopardize science. </div><div>
</div><div>Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF), a non-profit that defends scientists against legal attack. CSLDF was founded to fund Dr. Mann’s defense, represented Dr. Maibach, and filed amicus briefs in support of the University of Arizona. Help protect the scientific endeavor by donating to CSLDF, where a trustee is currently matching all donations up to $50,000. </div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ref's in kurta below:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://eelegal.org/2016/06/16/press-release-3/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 16, 2016</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;">Contact</strong>:<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" />Craig Richardson<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" /><a href="mailto:Richardson@eelegal.org" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">Richardson@eelegal.org</a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" />703-981-5553</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AZ Superior Courts Sides with E&E Legal and Orders UofA to Disclose ‘Climate’ Related Public Records Including Correspondence of Longtime Activists Hughes and Overpeck</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Washington, DC – On June 14, 2016, the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, the Honorable Judge James Marner, <a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/21268996.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">o</a><a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/21268996.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">rdered the University of Arizona to disclose certain “climate” related public records</a> sought by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), correspondence of two U of A academics, Malcolm Hughes and Jonathon Overpack, who featured prominently in the 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The University had withheld these records, dating from 11 to 15 years ago, from public view since a 2011 Arizona Public Records Law request.  The request deals predominantly with climate change communications and specifically should provide further insight into development of the<b> so-called “hockey stick” graph, activism by university professors using public resources, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records also were subject to freedom of information laws, and the subject of stonewalled requests prior to being <b>leaked apparently by a whistleblower </b>concerned over those same efforts. [huh? who?]</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> One of these U of A employees was a co-author of a particularly controversial paper at the center of these revelations, with his lead co-author, Michael Mann, describing the activist climate agenda in several emails as “the cause”. The other U of A employee has been at the center of this “cause” by his activism relating to and arising out of his work at the University, using University resources.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As such, these records likely include significant overlap with those withheld for years during the University of Virginia’s decade-long efforts to keep its own involvement in climate alarmism from the public.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Commenting on the decision, <b>Dr. David Schnare, E&E Legal’s General Counsel, and lead counsel in the case, </b>stated: “This is a landmark case that address the joint needs to ensure transparency while preventing harassment of academics. Academics have increasingly become a significant part of the policy-making process, requiring significant transparency in their activities. Judge Marner struck a wise balance.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Schnare continued, “The decision is a straight-forward and clear factual and legal ruling, the result of deep and thoughtful efforts by Judge Marner to sort through this difficult issue, which are plainly evident in the hearing transcripts.  Those hearings and the briefing in this case helped refine the arguments central to striking the proper balance of scrutiny that comes with public funding, as well as concerns inherent in the transparency which is essential to research, particularly research  that serves as the basis for economically and socially significant policies.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Court found that the University did not “specifically identify” any “substantial and/or irreparable private or public harm” that would come from releasing the documents; without such a harm, the legislature’s clear and overriding preference for transparency and public accountability prevailed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Court rejected the University’s argument that “release of the requested emails would set a dangerous precedent that would seriously and negatively impact higher education in Arizona and throughout the country.”  The Court did not “ignore the repeated ‘chilling effect” concerns” raised by the University, but concluded that “potential harm is speculative at best, and does not overcome the presumption favoring disclosure of public records containing information about a topic as important and far-reaching as global warming and its potential causes.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Court also addressed the University’s arguments regarding protection of academic freedom, holding “they go beyond championing academic freedom and, in effect, promote the creation of an academic privilege exception to [state public records law]. This is a proposition more properly made to the legislature rather than the courts.”  This finding may be the most critical outcome of this case, regardless of the public education that results on this matter of great public interest.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Upon receipt, E&E Legal will begin review of the more than 1,700 emails and other documents, after which it will make them publicly available to all interested in the history of this important period during which academics demonstrated significant influence on the public discussion on global warming and the human influence thereon, and the often highly political “cause” being undertaken by academics, the IPCC and others.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.eelegal.org/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">The Energy & Environment Legal Institute</a> (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and<b> transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">june 22 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">l kurtz:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><div class="item entry" id="post-4290" style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none rgb(26, 26, 26); background-image: url(" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat"><div class="storycontent" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On June 14, an Arizona trial court ruled that the University of Arizona must turn over more than a decade of university climate scientists’ emails to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (“E&E”), a group that, in its own words, “<a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/rrc0514.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">pepper[s] universities around the country</a>” with open records requests as part of a mission of “<a href="http://eelegal.org/about/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">free market environmentalism</a>.”  This <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/files/2016/06/2016-06-14-decision-EELI-v-U-of-A.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 2016 decision</a> is a complete reversal from a <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/comment-page-1/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">March 2015 decision</a> by the same judge, as well as a serious departure from other court cases across the country protecting scientists’ research correspondence.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">E&E – formerly named the American Tradition Institute (“ATI”) – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supreme-court-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">has</a> <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cope-when-activists-ask-for-climate-scientists-personal-emails/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://eelegal.org/2014/09/04/legal-letters-issue-iv-illinois-foia-request-faces-stonewalling/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">used</a> open records laws in attempts to obtain years of publicly funded scientists’ correspondence.  The group’s work has been described as “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research</a>” as part of its work to convince “<a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud</a>.”  The group has been linked to the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13049/bankruptcy-documents-indicate-arch-coal-funding-climate-denial-legal-group" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">coal</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#Funding_and_IRS_Status" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">oil</a> industries, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">major conservative players</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">organizations opposing action on climate change</a>.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">State and federal open records laws promote government transparency by allowing citizens to request copies of administrative records, but these powerful tools can also be misused:  the Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/protecting-scientists-harassment/freedom-bully-how-laws#.V2jdM2PTbcy" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">has found that</a> “open records requests are increasingly being used to harass and intimidate scientists and other academic researchers, or to disrupt and delay their work.”  Over years of protracted litigation, courts have often ruled for the protection of academic research in cases from <a href="http://www.publiclawnews.com/public-blawg/2013/04/appellate-court-explains-balancing-test-under-california-public-records-act" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">California</a> to <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/08/29/wv-decision-on-academic-freedom-versus-freedom-of-information-laws/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">West Virginia</a>.  But even when plaintiffs lose, they can still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/aug/28/digging-into-big-coals-climate-connections" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">succeed in</a> “confus[ing] the public debate, and forc[ing] universities and scientists to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves.”  Climate scientists in particular have <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">been subjected</a> to “information attacks” by a “network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation.”<span id="more-4290" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">E&E’s Earlier Lawsuit in Virginia</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under their old name ATI, E&E previously sued under open records laws for 10,000+ emails of prominent climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, seeking virtually every email he had written or received over his six years of employment at the University of Virginia (“UVA”), among other items.  In 2014, the Virginia Supreme Court <a href="http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1130934.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">ruled that</a> all of Dr. Mann’s emails were protected under Virginia’s open records law, and it determined that disclosing academic research correspondence would cause “harm to university-wide research efforts, damage to faculty recruitment and retention, undermining of faculty expectations of privacy and confidentiality, and impairment of free thought and expression.”  The Virginia Supreme Court also concluded that the state had an interest in “protect[ing] public universities and colleges from being placed at a competitive disadvantage in relation to private universities and colleges.”  The American Association of University Professors, among other groups, lauded the decision for its “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/brief/american-tradition-institute-v-rector-visitors-university-virginia-michael-mann-287-va-330-va" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">strong rationale for the defense of academic records</a>.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">University of Arizona Lawsuit, Initial Proceedings</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While the UVA case for Dr. Mann’s records was working its way through the Virginia courts, E&E brought another open records lawsuit in Arizona for the emails of Dr. Mann’s coauthor, Dr. Malcolm Hughes, seeking all of <b>Dr. Hughes</b>’ correspondence with Dr. Mann over the same six year period at issue in the Virginia litigation.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">  E&E also sued for a thirteen year span of emails from another Arizona climate scientist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) lead author, Dr. Jonathan <b>Overpeck,</b> on a variety of topics, including emails containing the word “deadline.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In its Amended Complaint, E&E stated it was conducting a “transparency project,” which it claimed was necessitated in large part by its interpretation of climate scientists’ emails stolen in the so-called “Climategate” hacking in 2009.  E&E alleged that certain hacked emails involving these two University of Arizona scientists and others indicated misdeeds worthy of further scrutiny, even though all official investigations related to “Climategate” have <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uk-police-close-climategate/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">shown no misconduct</a> and the episode has been acknowledged as a “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/opinion/11sun2.html" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">manufactured controversy</a>” for years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The University of Arizona withheld thousands of emails, applying Arizona’s general records exemption that it was “in the best interests of the state” to withhold.  As was successfully argued in the UVA open records lawsuit over many of the same emails, the University of Arizona argued that releasing scientists’ emails would chill researcher correspondence and undermine academic collaboration.  Release would harm the state, the University contended, by impeding the scientific process and discouraging researchers from working at Arizona public universities or with Arizona public university scientists.  The University argued that, if E&E were truly interested in evaluating scientific merits, the group would ask for final data, methodologies, and research results – which E&E did not do, perhaps because of all of this information was already publicly available via peer-reviewed published studies and online databases.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Ultimately, the University claimed, E&E’s “briefs and other public pronouncements reveal a plan to harass scientists whose views do not accord with those of E&E and its allies, or who simply do not play by the rules of etiquette E&E nominated itself to enforce.</b>”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In support of its arguments, the University submitted a series of sworn expert declarations.  Among these:</font></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bruce Alberts, a biochemist and former Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine, testified that releasing emails would be harmful, as scientists “must feel free to speak their minds in private emails – spontaneously and without fear of each informal thought being officially reviewed. . . . Any discouragement of such spontaneous and blunt honesty on the part of a scientist in private correspondence would seriously hinder the free flow of thought that is critical to scientific invention.”</font></li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Vicki Chandler, the Chief Science Program Officer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which annually awards $86 million in non-biomedical scientific funding, testified that “I would seriously question making a grant to an institution that could not keep their researchers’ [preliminary] data and communications confidential, as I understand the potential harm to the scientific process.”</font></li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Carole Goldberg, a law professor at the University of California – Los Angeles (“UCLA”</b>), testified that she was co-chair of a task force to determine how UCLA should respond to open records requests for academics’ research files. This task force concluded that “[f]rank, honest exchange depends on the maximum protection of the informal and everyday work, personal email, drafts, and records related to research and teaching” and without this protection, faculty will “avoid investigating controversial issues,” among other harms.</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Arizona scientists whose emails were sought by E&E also submitted sworn testimony.  </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Dr. Hughes testified that, when his emails were hacked in the 2009 “Climategate” episode, there was an “ongoing disruption of my professional and personal life” due to “consequent accusations, attacks, innuendo, and inquires.”</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> While there were unanimous official exonerations of any wrongdoing, “the emails were distorted and taken out-of-context by various anti-global warming groups.”  Dr. Hughes further testified that <b>“I have been directly informed by several colleagues that they have limited their email communications with me because I have been targeted in public records requests” </b>and that his research has consequently suffered; “this chilling effect is not merely theoretical but rather an actual and present harm.”  </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>He also testified that it took him ten weeks to compile and review the roughly 17,500 pages of emails that E&E sought (including converting email files on outdated technologies into currently readable formats</b>).  This took Dr. Hughes away from his research for a full summer – the time he would normally focus on research because he teaches during the academic year – and he lost grant funding that expired.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Dr. Overpeck testified </b>that he lost six weeks of his sabbatical to reviewing, in his case, over 90,000 pages of emails sought by E&E.  He testified that “this matter has been a grave distraction from my responsibilities to carry out research, teaching, administration for the University of Arizona, as well as from the time for my personal and family life. </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> I believe that if other colleagues were required to cull through tens of thousands of pages of emails and prepare a log of withheld emails, as I was, it would create such a significant potential for individual and collective disruption and that such process alone would result in a major competitive disadvantage to Arizona’s universities.”  Given these grievous harms, he testified that “[i]ndeed, I will likely be among those seeking work elsewhere in the event the risks identified in this case become a reality.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At a <a href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2015-02-06-U-of-A-hearing-transcript-excerpts.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">hearing in February 2015</a>, E&E countered that if Dr. Overpeck did leave the University, he could be replaced with “other potential faculty members with the same skill set and [who are] capable of doing the same job conceivably at<b> lower cost</b> and with more vigor because they’re young and ready to go” and that “it might be in the best interest of the State” for such faculty turnover to happen.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At that hearing, E&E’s attorney <a href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2015-02-06-U-of-A-hearing-transcript-excerpts.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">also claimed</a> that<b> female scientists</b> may take, in his words, a “mommy sabbatical” and then ignore their publicly-funded research in lieu of “sitting around folding clothes.”<a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#ftn1" name="ftnref1" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">[1]</a>  Given this risk, the attorney argued, scientists’ “abandoned” emails regarding “preliminary unpublished work” should be released to the public, and others should be able to pick up on any “abandoned” research in order to prevent “children d[ying] of cancer in the meantime.”  E&E did not explain how to determine what has been “abandoned.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In their opening brief, E&E stated that Drs. Hughes and Overpeck are “academic climate alarmists” deserving of further scrutiny because of “the large economic and regulatory impact resulting from reliance on” their research.<b>  E&E acknowledged that it sought, in part, emails that “embarrass both Professors Hughes and Overpeck and the University.” </b> </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">E&E also argued, in their briefs and at oral argument, that there is a role for taxpayers to review scientists’ emails for “uncivil behavior” and, they argued, “chilling incivility is not something that’s a bad thing.  It’s in the best interests of the State.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”  E&E claimed that it was “unfounded” to believe that releasing emails would “chill the creative efforts of faculty” and that protecting researcher records instead “encourages and rewards misbehavior.”  E&E also claimed that, because most of the emails they sought were from the late 1990s and early 2000s, this work was “stale,” and thus releasing them would cause “no harm.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">E&E submitted its own experts to support their arguments that release of researchers’ emails was in the best interests of the state.  Among these:</font></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Craig Idso,</b> founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, testified that certain “scientists have propounded an alarmist view that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have an exclusively negative effect on the planet and on human civilization” and they “hide any data they gather which shows contrary results. . . . To counter this, greater transparency within the academic community is needed.”</font></li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Peter Ferrara,</b> a former law professor at George Mason University and current fellow at the Heartland Institute, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">testified that “[m]y experience as an academic convinces me that the release of records after research has been published will not chill academic research, but may improve the quality of future academic endeavors.”</font></li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Russell Cook, an Arizona taxpayer</b>, testified that without access to the requested emails, “I cannot adequately determine whether climate research is a good use of taxpayer funds, whether such research is reliable . . . whether such research is effective . . . or whether the legislators and other public employees are being wise stewards of the public fisc.”</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The trial court, the Pima County Superior Court, initially <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">ruled in March 2015 that</a> the University had provided an “abundance of supporting evidence” that harm would occur if the records were released and that “[w]hen the release of information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or officer, there is discretion not to release the requested documents.”  Finding for the University, the trial court concluded that the University had not “abused its discretion or acted arbitrarily or capriciously.”  More about this March 2015 decision can be found <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>E&E appealed the decision</b>, claiming that the trial court should not have given any deference to the University of Arizona and that the trial court should have weighed both sides’ arguments equally under a <em>de novo</em> review.  The Arizona Court of Appeals determined that E&E had couched its appeal under a “rule that is inapplicable to this case,” but agreed that there should be a <em>de novo</em> review, and it remanded the case back to the trial court to equally “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Arizona%20Court%20of%20Appeals%20-%20Decision%20-%2012%203%2015.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">balance the countervailing interests</a>.”  (The Arizona Court of Appeals also noted that the Arizona open records laws authorize attorney’s fees to all successful plaintiffs.<a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#ftn2" name="ftnref2" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">[2]</a>)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Remand to the Trial Court</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On remand to the original judge, analyzing the same arguments and evidence but using a <em>de novo</em> standard of review, the trial court issued a <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/files/2016/06/2016-06-14-decision-EELI-v-U-of-A.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">new decision</a> on June 14.  This time, in weighing the University’s arguments equally with Arizona’s general “presumption favoring disclosure,” the trial court concluded disclosure was required.  The trial court determined that the University effectively sought “creation of an academic privilege exception” to Arizona’s open records laws, which, the court stated, “is a proposition more properly made to the legislature rather than the courts.”  The trial court also noted that, “[a]lternative methods of communications have been and remain available to Professors Hughes and Overpeck and any other similarly situated persons should they desire to correspond in confidence regarding research projects and like endevours [sic].”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a footnote, the trial court contrasted this case with <em>Arizona Board of Regents v. Phoenix Newspapers</em>, <em>Inc</em>., 167 Ariz. 254 (1991), which held that Arizona State University properly withheld 256 names being considered for University President.  In that case, the Arizona Supreme Court determined that revealing these names would “chill the attraction of the best possible candidates for the position” as the prospective candidates – people employed at competing universities, as well as people nominated by others – “may find it embarrassing and harmful to his or her career” to have the names released.  In determining that protection was warranted, the Arizona Supreme Court noted that in other cases, “publicity attendant to the search has proven detrimental to the search process, resulting in lesser qualified, but thicker skinned, persons applying.”  The interests of the state, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded, “are best served by not discouraging the ‘cream’ from applying” and thus protection was warranted.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here, the trial court concluded that the <em>Phoenix Newspapers</em> case dealt with “proven” harms of chilling effects, and while the University of Arizona had made “compelling” arguments, the trial court found that the probability of a chilling effect from releasing thousands of researchers’ emails was “speculative at best.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a <a href="http://eelegal.org/2016/06/16/press-release-3/" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">press release</a> issued two days after the decision, E&E reiterated its position that the emails sought would reveal an “activist climate agenda</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”  The group promised to make all of the emails “publicly available to all interested in the history of this important period during which academics demonstrated significant influence on the public discussion on global warming and the human influence thereon.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under the <a href="https://govt.westlaw.com/azrules/Document/ND80A48603F9F11E4B4D7C67CCE44C05C?viewType=FullText&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Arizona Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure</a>, the University must file a notice of appeal within 30 days after entry of the judgment.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="">Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund,</b> which previously assisted with the representation of Dr. Mann in his Virginia open records litigation.  CSLDF also filed amicus briefs in support of the University of Arizona in this Arizona open records litigation. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#ftnref1" name="ftn1" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">[1]</a> After the University of Arizona attorney stated that a “more appropriate” term “might be maternity leave,” E&E’s attorney clarified that “[y]ou can call it that, too, because it could be also daddy leave.  I mean, it’s a situation where a parent says I’m dropping my professional work to do something with my family.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#ftnref2" name="ftn2" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">[2]</a> The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usam/civil-resource-manual-220-attorneys-fees" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">general rule</a> in the United States is that each party must pay its own attorney’s fees.  In an exception to this general rule, open records laws <a href="http://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/Open%20Records%20Laws%20A%20State%20by%20State%20Report.pdf" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">widely authorize</a> attorney’s fees as a matter of course for prevailing plaintiffs.</font></p></div><small class="metadata" style="line-height: 19.76px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="category">Posted in <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/category/litigation/" rel="category tag" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Litigation</a>, <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/category/state-law/" rel="category tag" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">State Law</a></span><span class="tags" style="display: block;">Article tags: <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/tag/climate-science/" rel="tag" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Climate Science</a>, <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/tag/litigation/" rel="tag" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Litigation</a></span></font></small></div><h3 id="comments" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">5 COMMENTS</font></h3><ol class="commentlist" style="margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="alt" id="comment-1080199" style="margin: 0px; padding: 2px; list-style-position: outside; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><div class="commentmetadata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>John Macdonell</strong>, on <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#comment-1080199" title="" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 22nd, 2016 at 3:29 pm</a> Said:</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What precedent might this decision create?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(I suppose much depends on whether U of AZ appeals.)</font></p></li><li class="" id="comment-1080200" style="margin: 0px; padding: 2px; list-style-position: outside; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><div class="commentmetadata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Lauren Kurtz</strong>, on <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#comment-1080200" title="" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 22nd, 2016 at 6:07 pm</a> Said:</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Outside of Arizona, this case has no legal control. Each state’s open records laws are different and many others states have already concluded that scientists’ research emails should be protected.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Within Arizona, this is a trial court decision that may be considered persuasive authority by another trial court, but it is not binding and it does not control any higher court. That said, it still may encourage open records requests for massive swaths of public scientists’ emails as a way to harass, intimidate, and try to discredit.</font></p></li><li class="alt" id="comment-1080201" style="margin: 0px; padding: 2px; list-style-position: outside; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><div class="commentmetadata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong><a href="http://gelbspanfiles.com/" rel="external nofollow" class="url" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Russell Cook</a></strong>, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">on <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#comment-1080201" title="" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 23rd, 2016 at 1:09 pm</a> Said:</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a person benefiting from the luxury of time and my own personal savings (up until recently), I’ve been privileged ever since late 2008 to have articles appear online regarding a narrow political facet of the global warming issue. Lately, I’ve been doing more Google searches of my name to see whose radar I land on, which is how I found my name in this piece as one of the three testifying on behalf of E&E.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A couple of points first: We hear arguments that FOIA requests for emails are some kind of intimidation/harassment which interrupts work. Boo hoo, life is full of inconvenient interruptions. But if pro-IPCC scientists are proud of their work, ask yourselves why they seem to be so quick to resist anyone seeing their work. Witness the most notorious statement of all concerning a straight out request for an IPCC scientist to share his data, to which he responded, “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Witness ClimateGate emails (in their full context) in which IPCC scientists advocate deleting emails to circumvent the FOIA process. Witness FOIA-requested emails from the EPA being released in forms so heavily redacted that the effort would make CIA and NSA agents proud. For comparison, I’ve been named in a supposedly nefarious email chain (<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032015/leaked-email-reveals-whos-who-list-climate-denialists-merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-fred-singer-marc-morano-steve-milloy" rel="nofollow" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">http://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032015/leaked-email-reveals-whos-who-list-climate-denialists-merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-fred-singer-marc-morano-steve-milloy</a> ) implying some kind of sinister plot was afoot to stop Naomi Oreskes’ movie from coming out. But I could place ALL of my emails on a thumbdrive in a matter of minutes; enviro-activists looking for dirt would be bored to tears with my personal & hobby email content, and they’d be deeply disappointed in the lack of dirt within my emails with global warming people. There’d be nothing for them to use against me, and what I emailed only hugely undermines the collective notion that skeptic climate scientists are ‘paid industry shills.’</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Enviro-activists will no doubt recognize the two other names you quoted above mine. No doubt, they will also let out squeals of delight if they do a superficial Google search of my name. But, superficial Google searches about the global warming issue are arguably what keeps the issue alive, and deep intensive searches are what’s ultimately likely to kill it. Readers can either be satisfied to see whatever accusation they find hurled against me, or they can dig deeper to find out whether ANYONE has proven I’m paid and orchestrated to say what I say, and whether the things I write have ever actually been disputed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I could go on at length. Having long ago spotted the name of a global warming alarmist book author – a person I describe as the epicenter of the smear of skeptic climate scientists – in Michael Mann’s ClimateGate emails, and having spotted the fatal flaw within the “Jagadish Shukla letter to President Obama” situation (</span><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/those_scientists_who_want_to_use_rico_to_prosecute_agw_deniers_have_a_big_problem.html" rel="nofollow" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.americanthinker.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">com/articles/2015/10/those_scientists_who_want_to_use_rico_to_prosecute_agw_deniers_have_a_big_problem.html</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">) regarding a similar reliance on that book author as an indictor of skeptic climate scientists, THAT is the reason why the public needs to see pro-IPCC scientists’ emails; to determine what extent those scientists are relying on smear merchants in order to marginalize skeptic climate scientists in the eyes of the public. If pro-IPCC scientists are so certain their scientific work is above reproach, why would they have any impulse to cite highly questionable individuals making unsupportable guilt-by-association character assassination attacks against skeptic climate scientists? You do see the problem here, do you not?</span></font></p></li><li class="" id="comment-1080202" style="margin: 0px; padding: 2px; list-style-position: outside; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><div class="commentmetadata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Dave</strong>, on <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#comment-1080202" title="" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 23rd, 2016 at 10:35 pm</a> Said:</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Russel … the fact that you can fit all your emails on a thumbdrive, perhaps this is indicative that you don’t hold a professional job where it’s normal to receive hundreds of emails per day. I shudder to imagine what work would be like if every email I sent was continuously posted to the internet and picked apart by halfwits. All business would be conducted on the phone.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Please crawl back into the hole from whence you came and allow the noble profession of science to proceed in peace. Your frivolous lawsuit consumed hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money, but maybe that was the point?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If you can’t compete (in a peer-reviewed forum), litigate!</font></p></li><li class="alt" id="comment-1080203" style="margin: 0px; padding: 2px; list-style-position: outside; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><div class="commentmetadata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><a href="http://gelbspanfiles.com/" rel="external nofollow" class="url" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">Russell Cook</a></strong>, on <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/06/22/az-court-reverses-protection-for-climate-scientists/#comment-1080203" title="" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none;">June 24th, 2016 at 12:51 pm</a> Said:</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Admittedly, I could have completed the thought in my prior comment’s first sentence about having the luxury of time and largely my own savings to pursue my own personal inquiry into the global warming issue full time. One result from this, via comments at my various online articles and from my jousting with enviro-activists, is that nobody disputes what I specifically say about details and narratives within the widespread accusation that skeptic climate scientists are ‘paid industry shills.’ NOBODY, after 7+ years of this. Notice how commenter “Dave” only upholds this somewhat spooky situation, and instead only questions the number of emails I might have while also decrying the FOIA topic as some kind of economic inconvenience. Astute readers here could easily point out to commenter “Dave” that thumbdrives now can hold multiple gigabytes of information, and then ask him if his ‘economic inconvenience’ criticism applies equally to FOIA requests launched by Greenpeace and others. This isn’t “my lawsuit” either, by the way. I received an alert about it, it was in my home state, it concerned at least one individual already tied to the ClimateGate email scandal, and I was aware at the time from a year earlier that at least one one other prominent IPCC scientist relied on a highly questionable source to say skeptic climate scientists lie to the public on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Further, I also knew from years earlier that no less than a former IPCC Vice Chair cited similar accusation material ultimately stemming from that same questionable source to vilify a particular skeptic climate scientist.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Note the parting shot by commenter “Dave” about peer review, arguably a much worn-out variation of a talking point from enviro-activists who tell people to buzz off if they can’t put out a peer-reviewed science journal-published climate science paper. Informed readers here could readily point to full context ClimateGate emails in which it was suggested that a way should be found to prevent skeptic scientists’ material from appearing is such science journals, while also pointing to peer-reviewed papers on other scientific conclusions that were subsequently withdrawn due to data tampering. There’s a bigger irony in commenter “Dave”‘s last sentence, namely how it has every appearance of being psychological projection from enviro activists: basically from the start of the ‘Al Gore’ era of this issue, global warming believers were having increasing difficulty competing against the science-based criticism of skeptic climate scientists. How do you counter that, to prompt the public to dismiss them out-of-hand and not look at their detailed assessments? Call skeptic scientists industry crooks who follow the tactics of ‘Big Tobacco’. Believe whatever you want about that accusation, but lawyers here will say it doesn’t matter what you believe, it only matters what you can prove. I say that in 20+ years of the accusation, culminating in this latest ‘RICO push’ against anyone questioning the notion of catastrophic man-caused global warming, not one person has presented evidence proving skeptic climate scientists are in a pay-for-performance arrangement with industry people, where the common agreed-upon goal is to lie to the public. Commenter “Dave” can’t even bring himself to dispute this</font></p></li></ol></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">6/16</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1467297601923_8387" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This month, an Arizona court ruled that over a decade of two climate scientists’ emails must be turned over to E&E Legal, <span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">a </span></span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=8dd216d593&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">coal</span></a><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">-</span></span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=4170999805&e=15e3916d62" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">funded</span></a><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;"> group that openly works to discredit climate science</span>.  This is an incredibly dangerous court decision that will force climate scientists to work within a fishbowl, </span><span style="line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">where every email exchange can be picked apart by agenda-driven opponents – inhibiting scientific debate, discouraging collaboration, and chilling academic thought.</span></font></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></span><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> =</font></span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; border-width: 0px 0px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(181, 18, 27); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oops dupl node</font></font></font></h2><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">616 news bs</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman">PRESS RELEASE: AZ SUPERIOR COURT ORDERS UOFA TO RELEASE CLIMATE ALARMISTS E-MAILS</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>posted under: Climategate, Conflict of Interest, E&E Legal v. UofA, Press Releases, Schnare, Suits</div><div>
</div><div>For Immediate Release: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">June 16, 2016 </span>Contact: Craig Richardson Richardson@eelegal.org 703-981-5553 AZ Superior Courts Sides with E&E Legal and Orders UofA to Disclose ‘Climate’ Related Public Records Including Correspondence of Longtime Activists Hughes and Overpeck Washington, DC – On June 14, 2016, the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, the Honorable…</div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">une 16, 2016</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;">Contact</strong>:<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" />Craig Richardson<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" /><a href="mailto:Richardson@eelegal.org" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">Richardson@eelegal.org</a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;" />703-981-5553</p><p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none;">AZ Superior Courts Sides with E&E Legal and Orders UofA to Disclose ‘Climate’ Related Public Records Including Correspondence of Longtime Activists Hughes and Overpeck</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">Washington, DC – On June 14, 2016, the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, the Honorable Judge James Marner, </span><a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/21268996.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">o</a><a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/21268996.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">rdered the University of Arizona to disclose certain “climate” related public records</a><span style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"> sought by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">correspondence of two U of A academics</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Malcolm Hughes and Jonathon Overpack</span><span style="background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">, who featured prominently in the 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records.</span></b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">The University had withheld these records, dating from 11 to 15 years ago, from public view since a <b>2011 Arizona Public Records Law request.  The request deals predominantly with climate change communications and specifically should provide further insight into development of the so-called “hockey stick” graph, activism by university professors using public resources, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).</b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">The 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records also were subject to freedom of information laws, and the subject of stonewalled requests prior to being leaked apparently by a whistleblower concerned over those same efforts.  One of these U of A employees was a co-author of a particularly controversial paper at the center of these revelations, with his lead co-author, Michael Mann, describing the activist climate agenda in several emails as “the cause”. The other U of A employee has been at the center of this “cause” by his activism relating to and arising out of his work at the University, using University resources.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">As such, these records likely include significant overlap with those withheld for years during the University of Virginia’s decade-long efforts to keep its own involvement in climate alarmism from the public.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><b>Commenting on the decision, Dr. David Schnare, E&E Legal’s General Counsel, and lead counsel in the case,</b> stated: “This is a landmark case that address the joint needs to ensure transparency while preventing harassment of academics. Academics have increasingly become a significant part of the policy-making process, requiring significant transparency in their activities. Judge Marner struck a wise balance.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">Schnare continued, “The decision is a straight-forward and clear factual and legal ruling, the result of deep and thoughtful efforts by Judge Marner to sort through this difficult issue, which are plainly evident in the hearing transcripts.  Those hearings and the briefing in this case helped refine the arguments central to striking the proper balance of scrutiny that comes with public funding, as well as concerns inherent in the transparency which is essential to research, particularly research  that serves as the basis for economically and socially significant policies.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><b>The Court found that the University did not “specifically identify” any “substantial and/or irreparable private or public harm” that would come from releasing the documents; without such a harm, the legislature’s clear and overriding preference for transparency and public accountability prevailed.</b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><b>The Court rejected the University’s argument that “release of the requested emails would set a dangerous precedent that would seriously and negatively impact higher education in Arizona and throughout the country.”</b>  The Court did not “ignore the repeated ‘chilling effect” concerns” raised by the University, but concluded that “potential harm is speculative at best, and does not overcome the presumption favoring disclosure of public records containing information about a topic as important and far-reaching as global warming and its potential causes.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">The Court also addressed the University’s arguments regarding protection of academic freedom, holding “they go beyond championing academic freedom and, in effect, promote the creation of an academic privilege exception to [state public records law]. This is a proposition more properly made to the legislature rather than the courts.”  This finding may be the most critical outcome of this case, regardless of the public education that results on this matter of great public interest.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">Upon receipt, E&E Legal will begin review of the more than 1,700 emails and other documents, after which it will make them publicly available to all interested in the history of this important period during which academics demonstrated significant influence on the public discussion on global warming and the human influence thereon, and the often highly political “cause” being undertaken by academics, the IPCC and others.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><a href="http://www.eelegal.org/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none; position: relative;">The Energy & Environment Legal Institute</a> (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.</p></div><div>--</div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/" rel="bookmark" style="padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; letter-spacing: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">ARIZONA COURT UPHOLDS PROTECTIONS FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND CORRESPONDENCE</font></a></h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font><div class="chronodata" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1px; display: inline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posted on <span style="font-weight: bold;">March 31st, 2015</span> by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lauren Kurtz</span></font></div><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> - See more at:</span></div><div><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/#sthash.3qjYTdi4.dpuf</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On March 24, after years of litigation, the Arizona Superior Court, Pima County, ruled in favor of the University of Arizona and its efforts to protect climate scientists’ correspondence and prepublication work.[1]  In particular, in Energy & Environment Legal Institute v. Arizona Board of Regents</span>, et al., the court upheld the University’s decision to deny large portions of open records requests by Energy & Environment Legal (known as E&E, and formerly named the American Tradition Institute or ATI), a group that has repeatedly sought to use open records laws to access troves of researchers’ private files.[2]  <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">E&E has been described as having “a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations” in part through “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research,” and the group has been linked to the fossil fuel industry, “major conservative players,” and “organizations opposing action on climate change.”[3</span>]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">State and federal open records laws promote government transparency by allowing citizens to request administrative records, with exemptions for national security, trade secrets, and similar issues.  But open records laws have also become common tools of those seeking to harass scientists,[4] and open records requests for large swaths of documents (including private emails) have been made on scientists employed by the government or public universities, or who otherwise receive public funding.</span>  The scientists must then review and produce potentially thousands of documents – sometimes in a matter of days, depending on the applicable laws – or marshal a legal response explaining why the requests are invalid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the Arizona case, E&E filed multiple requests under Arizona’s open records laws for the files of University of Arizona climate scientists Dr. Malcolm Hughes and Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, seeking thirteen years of documents – including emails dating back to the 90s.  (E&E has also unsuccessfully gone after Dr. Michael Mann’s emails</span> in Virginia,[5] as well as many others.[6])  <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The University of Arizona produced some documents but denied release of several thousand others.[7]  The University stated the withheld documents contained protected intellectual property, including trade secrets and prepublication data and drafts;</span> it also applied Arizona’s general records exemption that it was “in the best interests of the state” to withhold the documents.[8]  The University argued that releasing the scientists’ files would undermine academic collaboration and chill researcher correspondence – particularly between publicly funded scientists and privately funded ones, who are not at risk of such disclosure.  This in turn would harm the scientific process and reduce the competitiveness of Arizona’s public universities, as researchers would become more reluctant to work at Arizona public universities or with public university scientists.[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">E&E contested this decision and initiated litigation.  In its Amended Complaint, E&E stated it was conducting a “transparency project,” which it claimed was necessitated in large part by its interpretation of emails released in the so-called “Climategate” hacking.</span>[10]  In particular, E&E claimed that certain hacked emails involving the University of Arizona scientists and others indicated misdeeds worthy of further scrutiny,[11] ignoring that all official investigations related to “Climategate” had shown no misconduct.[12]  E&E also claimed any fear that releasing emails would “chill the creative efforts of faculty” was “unfounded” and it asserted instead that protecting researcher records actually “encourages and rewards misbehavior.”[13]  E&E also acknowledged its requests sought, in part, documents that “embarrass both Professors Hughes and Overpeck and the University.”[14]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The University of Arizona countered that protecting research correspondence and pre-publication work “is necessary to ensure Arizona’s great public universities continue their traditions of excellence in research and scholarship….  E&E’s claim threatens to rupture ordinary and customary expectations of academic confidentiality, and a ruling in favor of E&E will inevitably harm Arizona’s public universities and the scholars working in them.”[15]  <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The University also stated that E&E was seeking “to attack [researchers’] science, criticize their interactions with each other and publicly assault how they speak about or defend themselves against the increasingly small group of outliers who continue to deny man’s role in global climate change….  E&E request[s] that the Court help it police and control the conduct of climate scientists.”[</span>16]  The University argued that, ultimately, E&E’s “briefs and other public pronouncements reveal a plan to harass scientists whose views do not accord with those of E&E and its allies, or who simply do not play by the rules of etiquette E&E nominated itself to enforce.”[17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its March 24 decision, the Pima County Court analyzed whether the University of Arizona had committed an abuse of discretion in denying E&E’s records requests, and it sided with the University.  The court found that the University could properly protect “prepublication critical analysis, unpublished data, analysis, research, results, drafts, and commentary” as well as prepublication peer review work because the University was justified in concluding that, as is prohibited by Arizona law, “release of [the] information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or officer.”[18]  The court also noted that the “volume and complexity of the records at issue is daunting,” and the court acknowledged that it spent “[m]any hours” of its own reviewing 90 “technical and esoteric” sample emails – a small fraction compared to the other 1700+ withheld emails – with “at least one [sample email] exceeding 800 pages in length.”[19]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite losing in court, E&E was still able to create considerable damage through this litigation:  the scientists had to pull and go through their records from the late 90s on, including hundreds of thousands of pages of emails and attachments.[20]  Dr. Hughes said it took him over ten weeks to go through the massive number of documents E&E was seeking, taking him away from his research for a full summer (the time that he would normally use to focus on his research because he teaches during the academic year).[21]  The University and the public court system also spent a substantial amount of time and money during the years of litigation.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nonetheless, this recent Arizona decision is a significant victory.  Combined with the 2014 Virginia Supreme Court decision in Dr. Mann’s case – which held that releasing faculty files could cause “harm to university-wide research efforts, damage to faculty recruitment and retention, undermining of faculty expectations of privacy and confidentiality and impairment of free thought and expression”[22] – the decision bolsters the consensus among courts that abusive records requests are not a permissible use of open records laws and only harm the scientific endeavor. </span> Unfortunately, this growing consensus has not yet stopped groups like E&E, which is committed to “peppering universities around the country” with open records requests[23] – including another one dated February 27, 2015, seeking additional records concerning the same two University of Arizona scientists.[24]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For more information on attacks on scientists, please visit http://climatesciencedefensefund.org</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which previously assisted with the representation of Dr. Mann in his Virginia open records litigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[2] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cope-when-activists-ask-for-climate-scientists-personal-emails/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[3] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[4] http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/protecting-scientists-harassment/freedom-bully-how-laws#.VRdv7Eu0HKE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supreme-court-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[6] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cope-when-activists-ask-for-climate-scientists-personal-emails/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[7] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.  Cited court filings are available from the author upon request.  See also Amended Complaint dated October 9, 2013.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[8] Letter from the University of Arizona to ATI (now known as E&E) dated February 5, 2013.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[9] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[10] http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.VRiv1ku0HKF</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[11] Amended Complaint dated October 9, 2013.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[12] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uk-police-close-climategate/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[13] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[14] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[15] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[16] Respondents’ Final Reply dated September 19, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[17] Respondents’ Final Reply dated September 19, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[18] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[19] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[20] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[21] Conversation with author.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[22] http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1130934.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[23] http://eelegal.org/?p=2958</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[24] http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/EELI-FME-Law-AORA-Research-Funding-Conflicts-request-U-of-A.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posted in Litigation, State Law - See more at: http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/#sthash.3qjYTdi4.dpuf</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; border-width: 0px 0px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(181, 18, 27); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></h2><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; border-width: 0px 0px 4px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(181, 18, 27); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">INFLUENCING THE NEXT GENERATION</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kochs have been involved in influencing higher education for more than 30 years, beginning with what is now called the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies, both based at George Mason University in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. Between 2007 and 2011, the Kochs gave <a href="http://bit.ly/14zToct" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">$30.5 million to 221 universities</strong> </a>through their charitable foundations. More than half of that giving, roughly $16 million, has gone to George Mason University and its foundation. Recently, however, the Koch brothers’ influence has expanded outside Northern Virginia and created potential conflicts of interest for the universities accepting their donations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The May-June 2012 issue of <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.aaup.org/article/fine-print-restrictive-grants-and-academic-freedom#.UdARVT7TWqw" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Academe</a></strong>, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, focused on corporate influence in higher education. Kent Miller and Ray Bellamy wrote about the Koch influence in the Florida State University economics department. The Charles G. Koch Foundation offered to give the university $1.5 million to hire two assistant professors and fund fellowships and undergraduate curriculum on free-enterprise topics. The foundation appointed an advisory board that would award money to faculty and make sure that the work they completed fit with the foundation’s mission. Miller and Bellamy wrote, “In exchange for his ‘gift,’ the donor got to assign specific readings, select speakers brought to campus and instruct them with regard to the focus of their lectures, shape the curriculum with new courses and specify the number of students in the courses, name the program’s director, and initiate a student club.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s not just at Florida State, which was a high-profile case, but also at other universities where the Kochs and John Allison, retired chairman and CEO of the financial institution BB&T, have donated money. Allison is on the board of directors at the Mercatus Center, which is funded by the Kochs, and following an intense fight in which the Kochs backed him, is now the president of the Cato Institute. BB&T sponsors chaired professors, typically in economics departments, and the universities where they sponsor a chaired professor often line up with where the Kochs donate.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Investigative Reporting Workshop analysis found that the Kochs had donated to 10 universities where there were BB&T-chaired professors, including West Virginia University, Clemson University and smaller universities, such as Hampden-Sydney College and Barton College. According to Inside Higher Ed in 2011, Clemson “spent several years cultivating the Charles G. Koch Foundation to support its Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, and has received $1 million thus far.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the core of the Kochs’ philosophy are the works of Ayn Rand, the objectivist philosopher and author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” (Rand’s writings are also emblematic of the readings recommended to students by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University). The new course that the Charles G. Koch Foundation wanted approved at Florida State was called “Market Ethics: The Vices, Virtues, and Values of Capitalism,” featuring the work of Rand as required by the memorandum of understanding. Through their charitable foundations, the Kochs gave $100,000 to the Ayn Rand Institute from 2009 to 2011.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And in the interest of full disclosure, in the course of this investigation, we discovered that American University, where the Investigative Reporting Workshop is based (within the School of Communication), received $17,500 in two separate grants from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The university’s Office of Special Programs (OSP) reports that both grants are for a program called “Lectures in Classical Liberalism,” which is under the direction of Tom Merrill and Alan Levine. Both professors are in the School of Public Affairs.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OSP said the following language describes the program that the grants supported:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We seek to build on and expand the program of lectures in classical liberalism funded by the Koch Foundation to date. At least two of these lectures would be designated “Koch Lectures on Classical Liberalism”; all of the funded lectures, however, will discuss some aspect of <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/_{achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Classical_liberalism.html}" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">classical liberalism</a></strong> whether in its theoretical and historical roots or in its contemporary applications. This series of lectures is primarily designed to encourage our students to have a sustained engagement with the ideas of classical liberalism, and secondarily at presenting an opportunity for classical liberal ideas to be heard in the larger university community and the D.C. policy conversation. To that end, we also require our speakers to meet and take questions from our students in an informal session separate from the public lecture, either in one of our classes or in a breakfast or lunch session during the speaker’s campus visit.”</font></p>