Virginia’s Attorney General and the Universities

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Colleges and Universities in the State

The University of Virginia said Monday that it would continue to fight state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II‘s efforts to obtain documents related to a climate scientist’s work, just hours after Cuccinelli reissued a civil subpoena for the papers.

The new Civil Investigative Demand revives a contentious fight between Cuccinelli (R), a vocal global warming skeptic, and Virginia’s flagship university over documents related to the research of Michael Mann, who worked at the university from 1999 to 2005. A judge blocked Cuccinelli’s first bid to obtain the documents.

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Mann, whose research concluded that the earth has experienced a rapid, recent warming, works at Penn State University.

Cuccinelli has been trying to force the public university, technically a client of his office, to turn over documents related to Mann’s work since April. Cuccinelli has said he wants to see the documents to determine whether Mann committed fraud as he sought public dollars for his work.  — The Washington Post, October 5, 2010

Cuccinelli has couched his rationale for seeking the documents in the rhetoric of anti-corruption and protection of public interests, but it is difficult to believe that he is not on an ideological crusade, trying to make the universities heel and stay on a short leash.  It is his second foray into university affairs.  The first was an attempt to stop the universities from protecting the rights of the LGBT community on their campuses.
As The Washington Post reported on March 6, about 2 months after he took office,
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state’s public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements.

In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others — a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week.

It’s an ideological war Mr. Cuccinelli is waging.  But regardless of the political perspective, it is unacceptable and ultimately is harmful to the interests of the state.  Most of Virginia’s best universities are state universities, and the prospect of undue government interference in research agendas, funding priorities, or any other aspect of the universities functioning could have a deterrent effect on the universities ability to attract grants, research dollars and even students.  Kudos to the University of Virginia for resisting the Attorney General on this!