The most recent edition of the AAUP’s “Academe: the Conflicted University” publication includes examples of Virginia schools as it examines how seriously academic freedom and research can be conflicted.
One article, “The Costs of a Climate of Fear,” reports just how gingerly researchers into climate change issues must tread these days because of the highly-polarized, political fervor surrounding the issue.
In California, for instance, one researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory got a message about his global warming work. His doorbell rang and when he answered, there was a dead rat on his doorstep and a man driving away while shouting obscenities.
In Virginia, the approach might be more civil, but it is far more serious, namely right-wing Atty. Gen’s continued assault on global warming research at the University of Virginia. The report’s author, Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists, reviews how Cuccinelli has doggedly gone after former U.Va. researcher Michael Mann for alleged fraud, even though several academic reviews have cleared him of any wrong-doing.
Attorneys general from across the nation are watching closely to see how the “Cooch” gambit plays out, but Halpern notes: “a court of law is not the place to settle scientific disagreements, and an attorney general should not be in the business of evaluating scientific research.”
Another part of the AAUP study delves into an issue dear to Virginia’s heart: tobacco. Author Allan M. Brandt dead of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, notes that more and more schools are refusing tobacco research money, including the business school at the University of Texas at Austin, the Emory University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical and Public Health Schools and Johns Hopkins.
The University of Virginia accepted $25 million in research money from Philip Morris in 2007, Brandt reports, although he doesn’t mention the controversy three years ago in which it was revealed that Virginia Commonwealth University had accepted research money from Philip Morris USA along with agreements keeping the deals secret. After a national firestorm, VCU admitted its mistake and agreed to no longer accept such one-sided contracts, although it still will get tobacco money.
Brandt notes that at least one federal court judge has found Philip Morris guilty of racketeering charges by conspiring to keep secret tobacco’s health dangers and that the firm and other tobacco companies have been effective in shouting down research findings they believe are bad for their business. Brandt has been an expert witness for the government in legal cases involving tobacco.
The sad part about tobacco is that it has been deeply ingrained in Virginia history since Jamestown. Philip Morris employs about 6,000 people in the state, mostly in Richmond, and is a major contributor to charities and arts such as symphonies and festivals. Their money is welcome since some other corporate donors have gone belly up.
But one has to wonder why such big name schools as Harvard, Johns Hopkins and UT Austin all ban tobacco money outright and what makes Virginia continue to treat the weed with such reverence.
As for global warming, the AAUP is right that Cuccinelli’s “going rogue” harassment of U.Va. smacks of the politically-charged witch hunts of the Joe McCarthy era. And with the Republicans winning big Nov. 2, the issue won’t go away.
Peter Galuszka
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