UCLA

---

see enstrom

prager u

SEE ACAD SUPPRESS

see FIRE

---

AN 10 25

The 27-page settlement proposal of demands sent by President Donald Trump to UCLA in exchange or $1.2 billion in funding, made public Friday, is being called a "gross federal overreach," according to anew report in Cal Matters.

The document was made public after public after the UCLA Faculty Association and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations sued the public university to disclose the information under the California Public Records Act.

The proposal outlines the administration’s vision for higher education that is free from efforts to promote diversity and transgender inclusion, according to Cal Matters.

While the university system argued that making the proposal public would cause it “irreparable harm” during ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration, it was released after a California superior court judge ordered it to do so, and the state Supreme Court rejected its appeal.

The list of demands was the result of the U.S. Department of Justice in July accusing the university of not doing enough to combat antisemitism during last year’s pro-Palestine protests, and for allegedly violating federal civil rights law.

IFrame Content

Governor Gavin Newsom has characterized the fine as “extortion,” and UC President James Milliken said that paying the settlement would “completely devastate” the university system.

So far, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Arizona, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California (USC) and University of Virginia (UVA) have rejected Trump's compact due to concerns over academic freedom and institutional independence.

"In issuing the demands, the Trump administration initially withheld more than $500 million in research grants to UCLA. But its leverage remains unclear now after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore nearly all those grants in August and September," Cal Matters reports.

Among Trump's demands of UCLA:

*Hire a senior administrator to review UCLA’s policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and eliminate “identity-based preferences” in faculty hiring and scholarship programs.

Prohibit the use of “personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discrimination” in its admissions process. (A 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling already prohibits race-based admissions, though students are free to submit essays that detail how race affected their lives.)

Prohibit the UCLA School of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals from performing gender affirming surgeries or hormone therapy for patients under 18.

Issue a public statement saying that it will comply with Trump’s executive order that recognizes male and female as the only two sexes.

Ban female transgender student athletes from participating in women’s sports.

Establish a process so that “foreign students likely to engage in anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic disruptions or harassment” are not admitted to UCLA. (That seems to be at odds with the letter’s goal of protecting UCLA “faculty and students from retaliation for expressing minority opinions or engaging in free expression.”)

Develop training materials to “socialize international students to the norms of a campus dedicated to free inquiry and open debate.”*

Cal Matters notes that some of these, including the elimination of diversity statements in faculty hiring and banning overnight demonstrations, are already UC policy.

In regards to the Trump administration's use of "antisemitism" as an impetus for these demands, over 600 Jewish students, faculty and alumni publicly opposed the settlement in an open letter published in August titled, "Jews in defense of UC."

The UCLA Faculty Association agrees.

“It is not just today’s students and workers who will be harmed by this gross federal overreach — but generations of Californians," said association president Anna Markowitz.

---

AN 9 25

The Los Angeles Times has reviewed a previously unreleased 28-page letter from the Trump administration to UCLA demanding an overhaul to adhere to a more conservative agenda and it's littered with grammatical and factual errors.

These demands, which include $1.2 billion fine over allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations, also calls on the California university "to make public declarations that it has agreed to significant elements of President Trump’s vision of higher education."

The president, who has previously said he "loves the poorly educated," doubled down on that sentiment Sunday, saying, "smart people don't like me."

Adding fuel to that fire is the UCLA document, which, the LAT reports, "shows signs of being hastily put together."

IFrame Content

Some of the more egregious errors besides the grammatical ones in which "nouns and verbs occasionally do not match in tense," are more factual, or, rather, lack thereof.

"There are references to the “president” of UCLA, but the top campus administrator, Julio Frenk, is a “chancellor," the LAT notes.

"A sentence about medical facilities references the “Feinberg School of Medicine,” which is at Northwestern University", not UCLA.

This isn't the first time the administration has shown why grammar and fact-checking matter.

In letters posted to his Truth Social account in July demanding world leaders sign on to his tariffs, Trump made an embarrassing error, according to the Daily Beast.

" Despite correctly referring to Željka Cvijanović, the Chairwoman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina as “Her Excellency,” the letter to her begins with “Dear Mr President.”

In another Truth Social post in which he thanked the B-2 pilots who took part in the attack on Iran, Trump, in all caps, misspelled his own name as, " “DONAKD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!”

More concerning that garden variety typos, however, is what The Guardiancalls "governing by mistake."

"Have we ever seen a more error-prone, incompetent and fumbling presidency? In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-ups. At times, they’ll seek to hide those mistakes by projecting a shield of authoritarianism. At other times, they’ll claim the mistake as a method of walking back an unpopular authoritarian agenda item. Either way, it’s a unique style of rule, one that I call “rule by error," says The Guardian'sMoustafa Bayoumi.

---

gmail no lnx 5 25

Trump escalates confrontation with Harvard by moving to cut all federal ties; University of California next in crosshairs as McMahon issues warning to higher education.

Harvard University held its commencement this week under a ‘cloud of fear and uncertainty’ following new attacks from the Trump Administration. After last week’s legal setback in the Administration’s attempt to purge Harvard of international students, Trump stepped up his confrontation with the Ivy League university this week by directing federal agencies to cancel all contracts with the institution, totaling around $100 million. The State Department also announced this week that it will be reviewing all Harvard-affiliated visa holders, not just students but also visiting scholars, faculty, and all foreign nationals working at the institution. In a court filing this week, Harvard’s counsel warned that some international students were afraid of attending commencement due to deportation threats. On Monday, May 26, Trump announced on Truth Social that he is considering taking $3 billion of grant money awarded to Harvard for scientific and engineering research and redirecting it to trade schools. During an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, May 28, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated that “Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they’re abiding by the laws and are in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish.”

This week, the Department of Justice announced that it would extend its ‘antisemitism probe’ beyond the Ivy League, targeting the 10-campus University of California system; task force leader Leo Terrell warned that the UC system should expect “massive lawsuits” and that other universities “on the East Coast, the West Coast, and the Midwest” could be similarly targeted. Jason Stanley, a fascism scholar who left Yale for Canada in March over Trump policies, said in a new interview with MSNBC this week that Trump’s attacks on the ‘crown jewel’ of U.S. higher education will ‘go from bad to worse’ and that ‘all dictators smash universities’. The Atlantic considers the attack on universities in the context of Trump Administration’s other cuts in public health, science, libraries and arts as an ‘attack on knowledge itself’ threatening to plunge the U.S. into a ‘new dark age’.

gaza

Counter-protesters

Far-right agitators and white nationalists were identified at some protests seeking to sow chaos and violence,^[146] and at the UCLA campus occupation, they were among pro-Israeli counter-protesters who attacked the encampment. A white supremacist affiliated with the Proud Boys was among the counter-protesters supported by far-right activists nationwide.^[147]

Horner102723

horner cruz comer?:

Jean-Paul P. Cart Antonia I. Stabile Venable LLP 101 California Street, Suite 3800 San Francisco, CA 94111 Email: JPCart@Venable.com AIStabile@Venable.com Attys for Respondent, The Regents of the University of California

HORNER DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF PETITION DOCS_LA:351773.1 38333/008 1 James K.T. Hunter (State Bar No. 73369) 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, 13th Floor Los Angeles, California 90067 Telephone: (310) 277-6910 Facsimile: (310) 201-0760 E-mail: jhunter@pszjlaw.com Attorney for Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL DISTRICT ENERGY POLICY ADVOCATES, Petitioner, v. THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Respondent.

Case No. 22STCP03214 DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER HORNER IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR WRIT Trial Date: December 14, 2023 (Reserved) Time: 9:30 a.m. Place: Dept. 85 Petition filed: August 30, 2022 I, Christopher Horner, declare: INTRODUCTION 1. I make this declaration in support of the Petition for Writ filed by Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) in the above-captioned proceeding against Respondent The Regents of the University of California (“Regents”). In this Declaration, I address the Regents’ response to the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”) request at issue in this matter dated August 2, 2021 (the “8/2/21 CPRA Request”)1 , and also set forth my opinions based on my experience with open records requests in California and nationwide, particularly as they relate to energy, environmental policy, and the global warming debate

...

Please describe the nature of UCLA’s Environmental Law Clinic’s work for Sher Edling,

the years during which that assistance was provided, and the specific cases that members of

that clinic worked on. Please also identify any expenses for that work that Sher Edling

reimbursed and any donations the firm or its partners have made to UCLA School of Law

since 2017.

Please provide a list of every person and entity, excluding clients and vendors, that

provided Sher Edling with any amount of money. For each person or entity listed, please

include the following information: (a) the amount of the money provided; (b) the date the

money was provided; (c) the purpose for which the money was directed to be used; and (d)

the manner in which that money was provided, i.e., through a grant, litigation funding

agreement, or some other contract or agreement. If the funding was provided pursuant to a

written agreement, please provide a copy of that agreement.

Sincerely,

---

Ted Cruz James Comer

Ranking Member Chairman

Committee on Commerce, Science, Committee on Oversight and

and Transportation Accountability

---

realclear invest links to EID?!

no docs

https://eidclimate.org/failure-to-disclose-new-report-exposes-academics-with-financial-ties-to-law-firms/

no lnx see realclear invest

FAILURE TO DISCLOSE: NEW REPORT EXPOSES ACADEMICS WITH FINANCIAL TIES TO LAW FIRMS

MAY 24, 2021| WILLIAM ALLISON

Just a week after the bombshell admission that a Harvard academic is working under a retainer agreement with a top plaintiffs’ attorney firm without any previous disclosure,a new report puts the spotlight on this practice happening at universities across the country.

The report, “Private Funders, Public Institutions: ‘Climate’ Litigation and a Crisis of Integrity,” published by [NOT THE REAL] Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO), uncovers the coordination taking place between public officials, activist organizations, wealthy donors, and university faculty to bring climate change-related cases against energy companies, with a specific focus on the lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in June 2020.

Why the Naomi Oreskes-Sher Edling Retainer Presents Multiple Conflicts of Interest

The GAO report’s release couldn’t have come at a more apt time. Earlier this month, news broke that Harvard professor and longtime climate litigation activist Naomi Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling, LLP, the environmental plaintiffs’ law firm representing the majority of municipalities and states, including Minnesota, that have filed climate change lawsuits against the energy industry in recent years.

When Oreskes and fellow Harvard researcher Geoffrey Supran released a new study focused on climate change communications (that was just as flawed as their previous work), they did not seem prepared for the news that Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling to break. Notably, this wasn’t disclosed via a game of telephone, either, but Oreskes herself said so while under oath in a recent deposition.

It now appears that Oreskes sought to redefine her business relationship with Sher Edling after it hit the press, as she and Supran provided several different explanations to reporters when asked about her retainer disclosure. While Oreskes may be uncertain about the nature of her involvement with Sher Edling and its implications, others are not.

Academics took to Twitter to point out that this relationship should absolutely been disclosed:

A significant (an undisclosed) conflict of interest https://t.co/IPX2PgtsJ8

— Judith Curry(@curryja) May 14, 2021

Shot ‘n Chaser

LEFT – Authors of new paper about Exxon-Mobil complicity in downplaying climate states they have no relevant financial ties

RIGHT – Same author disclosing in a recent deposition (Mann vs CEI) that she is on retainer for a law firm suing Exxon-Mobil

This is fine pic.twitter.com/UGTxjAPizf

— Roger Pielke Jr.(@RogerPielkeJr) May 14, 2021

The Academic-Activist Behind the Curtain in Minnesota

The report shows that Oreskes is far from the only academic who is working directly with top attorneys involved in the climate litigation campaign.

In Minnesota, the report outlines the critical role that University of Minnesota law professor Alexandra Klassplayed in orchestratingAttorney General Ellison’s lawsuit. In April 2019, she signed a memo titled “Potential Lawsuit against Fossil Fuel Companies for Minnesota Climate Change Damages” to be shared with the newly sworn-in Ellison.

Newly released documents in the report show that Klass was approached by anoutside activist groupthat provided funding for her students to write the memo, reviewed by other attorneys supporting climate litigation, and backed by theRockefeller network that has manufactured entire national litigation campaign.

None of this involvement by Klass was ever disclosed to the public, whether when moderating a forum on campus with Ellison, providing quotes in local newspapers, or in podcasts discussing the lawsuit.

Highlighting emails obtained through public records requests, the report shows that in late 2018, Klass was approached by Michael Noble, executive director of local activist group Fresh Energy about enlisting her help with potential litigation in Minnesota. In conversations with Klass, Noble spoke of a “big idea” and sent along climate pleadings from previously filed cases, and that he was looking for Klass’s “reaction (and hopefully enthusiasm).”

Roughly one month later, in December 2018, Noble asked if Klass wanted “to do a phone call with the lawyers advising the Rockefeller family fund” (sic) and the climate case was off to the metaphorical races.

Image via GAO

By early 2019, Klass had a contract through Fresh Energy to hire several law students to assist her in drafting the legal memo focused on a potential Minnesota climate change lawsuit that was eventually sent to Ellison.

Image via GAO]

In October 2019, Klass helped to host a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota Law School on “the legal and scientific case for recovering climate change damages in Minnesota from fossil fuel companies” which featured both Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Sher Edling’s Vic Sher, whose law firm now represents Minnesota in its climate change deception case.

At the time, the event was framed as an academic discussion. But what the public didn’t know was that Klass had already written a memo to Ellison earlier that year laying out the proposed legal theories that could back a climate change-focused lawsuit targeting the energy industry. Furthermore, the event was coordinated by Sam Duggan – one of the students who helped write the memo.

Despite her direct involvement in the drafting of the lawsuit, Klass has continued to present herself as an impartial expert on Minnesota state law. When Ellison initially filed his climate case last summer, Klass was quoted in news stories, including coverage from the Minneapolis Star Tribune as a professor of environmental law and thus, a neutral third-party expert. To date, she has not publicly spoken about her lack of disclosure regarding her involvement in helping put the idea of climate litigation in front of Ellison.

Efforts to keep government actions hidden from the public has even extended to Ellison’s office.Earlier this year, Ellison wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune touting his office’s transparency, but the hiring of two Bloomberg-funded Special Assistant Attorneys General from another university – the NYU Law School’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center – raises serious questions. Ellison’s claim that these SAAGs “report to me and no one else,” and thus solely loyalty is to Minnesota taxpayers, is hard to believe when the job description for a similar position with the New York Attorney General explained:

“Fellows hosted by the OAG as special assistants will have responsibilities that include… preparing periodic reports of activities and progress for the State Impact Center.”

The Group in the Middle of It All? The Rockefellers

To the surprise of no one who has is even remotely familiar with the climate litigation campaign, the Rockefellers are one of the common threads between Oreskes and Klass.

The Rockefeller Family Fund supported all three of Oreskes’ major studies focused on the energy industry,and if there was any doubt that the wealthy foundation that supports climate litigation wouldn’t have any subjective effect on this research, then let Oreskes herself explain how the source of a researcher’s funding can lead to unconscious bias.

As Oreskes stated in published a letter she co-authored in 2015:

“But the issue is deeper than one of obeying rules; the important question is why those rules are necessary. The answer is that even if we think of ourselves as honest, objective, and independent, scientific evidence demonstrates that our research can be influenced by the sources of our funding… Many of us are reluctant to accept this funding because it seems to imply that our colleagues—including individuals we may know and respect—have been corrupted. Corruption exists, but the funding effect may more often be the result of unconscious bias.” (emphasis added)

:{:{In Minnesota, the Rockefeller Family Fund has been just as active. The group, and its director Lee Wasserman in particular, put the idea of a climate lawsuit in front of Michael Noble right after Ellison was elected in November 2018, as the report shows:}:

Image via GAO]

In turn, Noble then went to Klass where he explained the Rockefeller Family Fund’s role in supporting a climate lawsuit in Minnesota:

Images via GAO]

The “lawyers advising Rockefeller family fund” that Noble mentions is the Center for Climate Integrity, an activist group that’s supporting climate lawsuits across the country and which has received more than $3 million from the Rockefeller Family Fund. The group was also a sponsor of the 2019 panel that Ellison and Klass attended, and two senior officials from the group, Judith Enck andAlyssa Johl, provided feedback on Klass’s memo:

Images via GAO

With the memo prepared, Noble then went about bringing all the threads togethers by arranging a meeting of the key players, including Klass and officials with the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Center for Climate Integrity:

Finally, shortly after Ellison introduced the lawsuit, Noble couldn’t help but tout his own work when he admitted on a public webinar that he and the Rockefeller-funded Center for Center for Climate Integrity convinced the attorney general to file the case.

West Coast Edition

The coordination among academics and law firms is indeed happening from coast to coast, including Ann Carlson, the UCLA Law professortaking a leave of absence to serve in the Biden Administration.

Previously, Carlson has worked as a consultant with Sher Edling, the same firm that has Naomi Oreskes on retainer. Carlson also appeared on a panel discussion on climate litigation alongside Vic Sher at the University of Hawai’i Richardson School of Law in May 2019, just ten months before the City & County of Honolulu filed its own climate lawsuit.

The report outlines Carlson’s work at theUCLA Law School and the financial support she received:

“Consider another relevant example, revealed in a recent public-record production obtained from UCLA Law School by Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. That production of documents revealed certain details of how donors named Dan Emmett and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro gave a combined $1.5 million to a ‘Carlson discretionary fund’ which, according to the Shapiros’ instruction, is ‘to be used at the discretion of Professor Ann Carlson… in her sole discretion as she deems appropriate.’” (emphasis added)

Conclusion

As Energy In Depth as shown for years, the Rockefellers have manufactured the entire climate litigation campaign and their work hasn’t slowed down.

This new paper from Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. uncovers the role that academics have played in supporting these lawsuits with Minnesota the latest example of the lack of disclosure between government officials, activist groups, and college professors.

Added on top of the bombshell news that Harvard professorNaomi Oreskes is on retainer with a top plaintiffs firm, this nationally coordinated campaign becomes more interconnected by the day.

---

https://www.jpands.org/vol17no4/arnett.pdf

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 17 Number 4 Winter 2012

Politicized Science: the Case of Dr. James Enstrom v. Powerful Environmental Activists Jerome C. Arnett, Jr., M.D

---

enstrom

Sincerely, [Cameron Gundersen] Chair, Academic Freedom Committee On behalf of the members of the Academic Freedom Committee: Irena Cronin Esteban Dell-Angelica Russell Jacoby Christopher Looby Seana Shiffrin David Teplow Leaniva Tuala Elise Youn Cc: Thomas Rice, Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel Ann Karagozian, Chair, Academic Senate

Schools: University of California, Los Angeles

Cases: University of California at Los Angeles: Non-Reappointment of Controversial Professor

bet he's sorry now or clueless:

https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/RLP_Falle_HighQualityResearchAct_FINAL.pdf

June 25, 2013

GARY FALLE ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FEDERAL GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

Dear Gary: The University Committee on Academic Freedom (UCAF) brought the draftHigh Quality Research Act (Smith-TX) to the attention of the Academic Council at its meeting on May 22. The bill would allow political review of the grant review process at the National Science Foundation. The Council urges you to vigorously oppose any such political interference in the peer review process and asks that you carefully monitor such attempts. Sincerely, Robert L. Powell, Chair Academic Council Cc:

BOB POWELL, CHAIR ACADEMIC SENATE RE: THE HIGH QUALITY RESEARCH ACT

Dear Bob, The US House of Representatives is on the verge of considering a bill that will add a layer of political review to the grant-review process at the National Science Foundation (see the accompanying link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/lamar-smith-science_n_3165754.html). Although this is not a typical academic freedom issue, it is a matter of grave concern to the scientific community, which relies on peer review to identify meritorious research. Consequently, the members of UCAF unanimously encourage you to voice opposition on behalf of UC to congressional efforts to politicize the grant-review process. Sincerely, Cameron Gunderson, UCAF Chair

cgundersen@mednet.ucla.edu

---

https://www.thefire.org/drexel-professor-resigns-after-months-long-investigation-exile-from-campus/

white genocide tweet

University of California at Los Angeles: Non-Reappointment of Controversial Professor

Category: Free Speech

Schools: University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) refused to reappoint an environmental health sciences professor, stating that his controversial research failed to accord with the department’s “mission.” Dr. JamesEnstrom engaged in successful whistleblowing against a prominent member of the department, and there had been many years of debate between Enstrom and some of his colleagues over research on air pollution. After FIRE intervened, Enstrom was given a reprieve while his appeals continued. Enstrom filed a lawsuit against UCLA in June 2012, assisted by the American Center for Law and Justice. The case is currently before a federal district court.

### Order in Enstrom v. Regents of the University of California, et al. Granting in Part and Denying in Part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

March 18, 2013 | » Read More

https://d28htnjz2elwuj.cloudfront.net/pdfs/e88035eace587df7102fe7f05229c229.pdf
looks like he only won on the accounting stuff? not on const.

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### Letter to UCLA Academic Senate, June 20, 2012

July 03, 2012 | » Read More

---

### Whistleblowing Scientist Who Challenged Environmental Regulation Sues UCLA

June 14, 2012 | » Read More

---

### Complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Central District of California by James Enstrom against University of California, Los Angeles, June 13, 2012

June 13, 2012 | » Read More

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### Letter to James Enstrom from Senate Committee on Academic Freedom Chair David B. Teplow, June 4, 2012

June 04, 2012 | » Read More

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### Letter from FIRE to UCLA School of Public Health Dean Search Committee, January 3, 2012

January 03, 2012 | » Read More

---

### Email from University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Edward J. Calabrese to Richard Jackson, August 8, 2011

August 08, 2011 | » Read More

---

### Letter from UCLA Academic Freedom Committee to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, April 15, 2011

April 15, 2011 | » Read More

---

### Letter from Chief Republican Whip Dan Logue to UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block and Provost Scott Waugh, March 29, 2011

March 29, 2011 | » Read More

---

### Letter from Associate Dean for Academic Programs Hilary Godwin to Professor James Enstrom, January 28, 2011

January 28, 2011 | » Read More

---

### E-mail from Richard J. Jackson to James E. Enstrom, January 3, 2011

January 03, 2011 | » Read More

---

### Letter to FIRE from UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, September 17, 2010

September 17, 2010 | » Read More

interesting, unlike others no text, just pdf:
https://d28htnjz2elwuj.cloudfront.net/pdfs/08485e94998f140b59b9b0d467acfc7c.pdf
says he can't speak b/c greivance [union?] ongoing tho je waiver; says he is not faculty so not academic senate rules/biz but based on academic merit, no other consideration.

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### FIRE Letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, August 26, 2010

August 26, 2010 | » Read More

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### Emails concerning James Enstrom, August and September 2010

August 19, 2010 | » Read More

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### Letter from Third District AssemblymemberDan Logueto UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block and Provost Scott Waugh, August 16, 2010

August 16, 2010 | » Read More

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### Letter from Hilary Godwin to James Enstrom, July 29, 2010

July 29, 2010 | » Read More

---

### Professor James Enstrom directory listings, 1998-2010

July 01, 2010 | » Read More

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### Letter from Richard Jackson to James Enstrom, June 9, 2010

June 09, 2010 | » Read More

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### E-mail from Environmental Health Sciences Chair Richard Jackson to Dr. James Enstrom, February 10, 2010

February 10, 2010 | » Read More

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### E-mail from Dr. James Enstrom to Environmental Health Sciences Chair Richard Jackson, February 9, 2010

February 09, 2010 | » Read More

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### Pacific Legal Foundation Lawsuit Press Release, June 18, 2009

June 18, 2009 | » Read More

---

### Notice of Adverse Action to Hien T. Tran, April 9, 2009

April 09, 2009 | » Read More

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### UCLA Environmental Health Sciences Department Mission, 2008

December 31, 2008 | » Read More

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### Environmental Health Sciences Department Faculty-Staff Directories, 2005 and 2006

April 26, 2006 | » Read More

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### E-mail from UCLA Dean Linda Rosenstock to Associate Resident Professor James E. Enstrom, April 1, 2004

April 01, 2004 | » Read More

---

no lnx NASty

James Enstrom vs. UCLA: Terminating Environmental Debate

Author: Peter Bonilla

Date: Dec. 2017

From:Academic Questions(Vol. 30, Issue 4)

Publisher: SpringerAuthor(s): Peter Bonilla 1

Author Affiliations:

(1) Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), grid.479209.1, , 510 Walnut Street, Suite 1250, 19106, Philadelphia, PA, USA

In the grand scheme of whistleblowing settlements, the $140,000 that epidemiologist James Enstrom received in 2015 from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to settle his 2012 wrongful termination lawsuit was fairly modest. Add another zero to the sum and then multiply it by four or five, and you've got an above-the-fold story, but Enstrom's dropped to footnote status fairly quickly. Those reading about Enstrom's case may have noted that his research evaluated levels of diesel particulate matter in the air, said, "Good for him," on the settlement, and moved on to the next story. After all, how does this particular issue stand to affect me?

By quite a lot, it turns out. In this instance, for Californians it's their money, after all, that goes into paying such settlements-and public money dispensed to settle whistleblower cases is money that could almost by definition have been put to better use. Also, while it's easy to gloss over this, the issues at play in Enstrom's case have implications well beyond the proverbial ivy-covered gates of his institution. The scientific consensus that Enstrom felt obliged to oppose in light of his own research findings has significant influence over state clean air policies, which affect not only public health but also the welfare of multimillion-dollar industries-and the many workers these businesses employ. James Enstrom is therefore a case study in why protecting academic freedom, often viewed from outside the academy as a quaint, esoteric concept, truly does serve the public interest.

Controversy

Enstrom had been a researcher in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) at UCLA's School of Public Health since 1976, nearly thirty years, when the journal Inhalation Toxicology published "Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Total Mortality among Elderly Californians, 1973-2002," a paper based on the results of his long-term research.1 The 2005 paper fell squarely within EHS interests and was something of a shot across its bow.

Enstrom's research examined the long-term effects of particulate matter (the sum of all solid and liquid particles, many of which are hazardous, suspended in air) 2.5 micrometers (two millionths of a meter) or less in diameter, or PM2.5, to employ the scientific parlance. His findings, as he explained in his paper, "[did] not support a current relationship between fine particulate pollution and total mortality in elderly Californians, but they do not rule out a small effect, particularly before 1983."\2

This statement may seem perfectly anodyne to the nonexpert, but within Enstrom's community it was a controversial finding. Several of his EHS colleagues publicly supported a causal link between elevated PM2.5 levels and increased risk of mortality. One of them, John Froines, also served on the Scientific Review Panel (SRP) of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a state agency that sets, among other controls, regulatory limits on diesel emissions-precisely the sort of emissions addressed in Enstrom's research. Froines...

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/proud-boys/

Right-wing extremists have long fled behind humor and irony to escape consequences for their hateful ideology, and that allowed some of them to hide in plain sight before Donald Trump's supporters tried to violently overturn his election loss.

They've never made any secret of their efforts to use humor and irony as both a weapon and defense, and those tools also allow them to sell what might otherwise be considered toxic to potential converts, reported NPR.

"Irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views," said 22-year-old extremist Nick Fuentes in a video from last year.

Fuentes specifically mentioned Holocaust denial -- or "revision," as he puts it -- as a topic he smuggles into conversations under the cover of irony, and he recently went on an extended violent and misogynistic rant about domestic abuse that he punctuated with a smirk toward the camera.

"Just kidding!" he told viewers, after urging a viewer to violently "punish" his wife. "No, I'm kidding, of course. Just kidding. Just a joke."

Weaponized irony allows extremists like Christian Secor, a Fuentes fan who was charged in the Capitol riot, to skirt past consequences after his UCLA classmates grew increasingly worried about his glorification of guns, racist and anti-Semitic social media posts and other bigoted behavior, which he insisted was just "trolling" whenever he was called to account.

"It's called a joke and the fact that you think that these posts are anything more than that is telling," Secor told one classmate who flagged an offensive tweet.

Fuentes and other right-wing content creators urge their followers to hide behind irony and then try to shame their critics into silence.

"A lot of these content creators will tell the audience explicitly, 'When people say you're racist for liking this or thinking this, just laugh at them. They can't handle it — they're sensitive babies,' " said Jared Holt, a resident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.

UCLA took no action against Secor despite his escalating behavior, likely out of free speech concerns at the public institution, and classmates said they were afraid to report him for the same reason.

"I definitely felt that sense of threat," said student Oona Flood, "and, like, I really hate to say, [because] it sounds so much like, overblown, 'snowflake,' that we're just overreacting, you know?"

The Ku Klux Klan were portrayed as outlandish, rather than dangerous, in its early days, and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously noted the way Nazis attempted to hide behind absurdist humor to cover their hate -- and give themselves an unfair advantage.

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies," Sartre wrote in 1944. "They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

The Proud Boys, the pro-Trump paramilitary group named after a song from Disney's "Aladdin," revel in irony, indulging in ridiculous bonding rituals before engaging in street fights, and at least 25 members of the right-wing group are facing conspiracy and other charges related to the Capitol insurrection.

True to form, group founder Gavin McInnes mocked the media in an email to NPR, which he said "willfully ignores" the group's in-jokes to make them look bad.

The Proud Boys are "funny dudes, not Nazis," McInnes wrote.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Competitive Enterprise Institute's Climate Denial Efforts Target Media, Cities Filing Liability Suits

By Guest • Saturday, January 26, 2019

Karen Savage, Climate Liability News. Crossposted from Climate Liability News.

The conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute has been busily pressing forward with its mission to promote climate denial, using high-profile tactics like full-page ads in major newspapers. But it is also working behind the scenes, filing records requests to dig for information from cities filing climate liability suits and academics studying the topic.

As the science has grown definitive in tying global warming to the burning of fossil fuels, even oil companies have been forced to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus and back away publicly from climate denial efforts. But CEI continues to double down on their mission to claim the science is not settled.

CEI made a splash this week by purchasing full-page ads in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal taking issue with Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and NBC for refusing to give airtime to denialists during his Dec. 30 show about climate change.

The think tank has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry and has long worked to promote climate denial. And as municipalities have begun to sue fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, CEI has filed briefs and launched other campaignsdefending them.

According to Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, CEI’s most recent push is likely motivated by the increasing number of those lawsuits and investigations of the fossil fuel industry.

“CEI has a personal interest in how these lawsuits proceed because they had a contract with ExxonMobil Foundation from the 1990s — they got over $2 million through 2007 when Exxon abruptly dropped them,” said Davies, adding that he expects lawyers pressing suits against the company would want to see the contracts between CEI and Exxon during that period.

CEI’s tactics go beyond its attempts to sway public opinion.

Last year, CEIsued UCLA to obtain emails the organization said were exchanged between two UCLA climate law professors and state attorneys general offices involved in investigations of the oil giant.

An ethics complaint filed by another fossil fuel industry-backed group in December against then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood echoes areport written by CEI legal fellow Chris Horner. The report relied on public records requests to allege that attorneys general are involved in a coordinated scheme by private interests to hold oil giants responsible for climate change. That alleged conspiracy includes Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is also investigating Exxon for possible fraud.

Horner has also filed information requests with municipalities filing suit against the oil and gas industry, including Richmond and San Francisco. In those requests, he is seeking records related to a climate litigation-related briefing he said took place at Harvard in 2016 between activists, private attorneys and public employees of various states’ attorney general’s offices.

In July, he requested communication belonging to staff members in the Rhode Island attorney general’s office, after it became the first U.S. state to attempt to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change by filing suit against 21 oil and gas companies.Horner’s request was for communication between special assistant attorney general Greg Schult, senior policy advisor Matthew Lenz and legal experts involved in climate litigation in other municipalities, including attorneyMatthew Pawa, Niskanen Center chief counsel David Bookbinderand director of climate policy Joseph Majkut.

Horner is also on the board of directors of the non-profit Government Accountability and Oversight, the organization behind Climate Litigation Watch, which posts public records obtained in an attempt to “expose the network of influence involving the litigation surrounding climate change.”

CEI has used full-page ads in major newspapers in previous campaigns to try to discredit climate action.

In one ad that appeared in The New York Times in 2016, CEI — along with more than 40 signatories — claimed that attorneys general across the country were abusing their power by attempting to silence the “debate” on climate science.

Between 1997 and 2014, those signatories and the organizations they representreceived more than $10 million from Exxon and the ExxonMobil Foundation and theyreceived more than $21 million from the Koch brothers, who have long funded climate denial efforts in support of their fossil fuel businesses.

Today, full-page ads in theWashington Post can cost $100,000 and more. Ads in the Wall Street Journal can top $325,000.

In a press release, CEI said the ads push back on Todd and NBC’s decision to “exclude guests who disagree with alarmists and calls for a real and open debate about the impacts of climate alarmist policies.”

“Sometimes, journalists like Chuck Todd are persuaded to join the activists in shutting down legitimate debate about policy issues and in those cases, we feel a duty to push back in defense of our rights and our policy positions,” a CEI spokesperson said in an email, adding that the organization’s requests for public records are made on their own initiative, and as part of this body of work defending their principles.

“Americans of all political stripes tune into NBC’s Meet the Press with the expectation that the great political issues of the day will be debated vigorously by guests representing a full range of viewpoints,” said CEI PresidentKent Lassman.

Because CEI does not disclose its donors, it’s unclear who is funding the current ads, but it has previously received funding directly from David Koch, as well as coal giantsMassey Energy Company andMurray Energy Corporation.

ExxonMobil was a publicly-acknowledged contributor to CEI for a number of years.

“In 2006, however, ExxonMobil publicly announced that it would cease its support for CEI and a number of other groups,” a CEI spokesperson said in an email.

NBC did not respond to a request for comment.

The ads fit into a long-running strategy to cloud the issue of climate science to the public.

CEI was named in a 1998 email to the American Petroleum Institute’s global climate science communications team as a possible funding recipient in a campaign to implement a “Climate Action Plan.”

According to that plan, “victory will be achieved” when people and the media are convinced there is significant uncertainty in climate science and “media coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognizes the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current ‘conventional wisdom.'”

Davies said in addition to potentially having to face an examination of its relationship with Exxon in the course of climate litigation, CEI has other concerns.

Davies pointed to a study published this week showing Greenland’s ice ismelting faster than previously thought and a recent Yalepoll showing that 73 percent of people in the U.S. understand climate change is occurring and 62 percent understand it is mostly human-caused.

“The evidence is in front of people, the weather‘s messed up, the climate’s messed up, the public opinion is moving away from CEI, and then they strike out at a national news broadcast for not including this extreme minority opinion that there’s nothing to worry about,” Davies said.

ref

https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/12/ucla-law-professor-ann-carlson-cara-horowitz-cei/

Marco Poggio

According to the lawsuit, Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Regents of the University of California*,*the emails show environmental law professors Cara Horowitz and Ann E. Carlson discussed future meetings with others, including staffers from several attorney general offices, to discuss new legal actions against major carbon producers.

Carlson told Climate Liability News that UCLA is working on complying with CEI’s record request, sorting through hundreds of emails.

“I don’t feel intimidated. I don’t have anything to hide,” Carlson said, “I don’t have a problem, so far, with what I’ve been required to turn over.

“I do worry that these tactics, more broadly, are designed to discourage public discourse about important topics, like climate change and who should pay for climate damages.”

Specifically, CEI has asked for correspondence between the two UCLA scholars andShaun Goho, a Harvard lecturer and environmental lawyer with a record of environmental litigation in state and federal court.

Goho said the lawsuit is just an harassment tactic meant to divert the energy and resources of people fighting climate change away from their work.

“I don’t see how academics speaking with government officials about matters of public concern is a conspiracy. It doesn’t seem to make sense to me,” Goho said.

CEI has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry. Exxon was its biggest funder until 2006, when public criticism pushed the company to distance itself from CEI’s climate denial campaigns.

CEI has also sought emails containing the names of other pro-environment lawyers and climate scientists, including Peter Frumhoff, the director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists,and Sharon Eubanks, one of the attorneys involved in the federal tobacco litigation against Philip Morris.

Additionally, CEI demanded emails regarding two separate events—one held at Harvard and one at UCLA—attended by Carlson and Horowitz and employees of various state attorney general offices, private lawyers,academics and environmental activists, who were set to discuss causes of action against major carbon producers.

“Public records show that Professors Horowitz and Carlson are using their positions at your public university to coordinate with certain activists groups in organizing and pursuing law enforcement and civil investigations and litigation against private opponents of a particular political agenda.We seek correspondence and other records illuminating this use of a public university faculty position and resources,” the request’s text reads.

Frumhoff declined to comment for this story.

Central to the lawsuit are the UCLA and Harvard meetings, in which Carlson, Horowitz and other parties discussed legal actions against polluters.

The “secret meetings” as they were described in some of the emails, were attended byFrumhoff and Matthew Pawa, a lawyer with Hagens Berman, which is involved in several climate liability suits filed by communities against the fossil fuel industry. Those meetings also included staffers from attorney general offices around the country, including those of New York and California.

A CEI representative declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but referred to the organization’s website for a statement concerning the lawsuit.

“Thisdonor-funded scheme of using law enforcement to pursue a failed political agenda, raises significant constitutional and other legal issues,as well as ethics concerns. With the revelation that this involves the use of public institutions in this mercenary campaign, the public has a right to knowwhat their employees are doing in their name, and on their dime,” Horner’s statement said the statement continues.

In its lawsuit, CEI claimed the subject matter contained in the emails is of “great public interest”and that the university has violated the California Constitution because delays in handing over the records practically meant a refusal to comply with the request.

The use of public record access laws as a tool to hit back critics in the academic world is a fairly recent practice embraced by trade groups of several industries, not just oil and gas, to target opponents.

“Requests can be burdensome on government agencies,” said David Snyder, an expert in California public record access law who directs the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit nonpartisan advocacy group that promotes free speech and public access to government information.

The law effectively puts academics in the same position as public officials that might have strong interests in not having their communications disclosed to the public.

The right to exemption from having to turn over documents is often hard to balance with the right to access public records, which is critical to ensure transparency in institutions, Snyder said.

“It’s tricky,” Snyder said. “Under the public records act, by design, government agencies are not allowed to single out the requesters based on the reasons for which they want the records.”