Penn State U will release today the results of its follow-up investigation into whether professor Michael Mann acted within university academy integrity regulations while researching climate change.
The report will be available after Mann and the National Science Foundation — who helped fund some of Mann’s research — are notified of the findings, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said.
The review began March 4 and had a 120-day deadline — a timeline ending today.
In February, Penn State officials cleared Mann of “falsifying or suppressing data, intending to delete or conceal e-mails and information, and misusing privileged or confidential information,” according to the RA-10 Inquiry Report.
But the report set up a five-person committee to review whether Mann practiced “accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse.”
Meanwhile, Mann’s research from his time at U. Virginia is being called into question. Mann was an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences from 1999 to 2005.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wants to know if Mann wronged taxpayers when he accepted grants to study climate change, Cuccinelli spokesman Brian Gottstein said.
“The use of manipulated data to apply for taxpayer-funded research grants in Virginia is potentially fraud. Given this, the only prudent thing to do was to look into it,” Gottstein said.
The Virginia Civil Investigative Demand (CID) called for U. Virginia to produce materials presented by Mann when he sought funding from Virginia. CID is also asking the university to provide more information about five grants worth a combined $484,875 awarded to Mann while he was at the University of Virginia.
Cuccinelli also called for the school to turn over all correspondences between Mann and 39 other scientists, saying the CID is meant “to reach any and all data, documents and things in [the university’s] possession.”
U. Virginia was supposed to comply with Cuccinelli’s request by May 27, but university officials filed a legal petition to set aside the investigation.
The school responded to the CID with a statement claiming the investigation put academic freedom in jeopardy and questioned the legality of such action.
Despite the controversy, Mann said he is not a direct party to the matter – which is between the university and the Attorney General – and had not been in communication with either involved party.
Still, Mann said he was pleased with the university’s response to the investigation.
He also said he’s happy with the support he’s received from other organizations including the American Association of University Professors, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Geophysical Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and the editorial board of the Washington Post, which has denounced Cuccinelli’s investigation in several editorials.
As for the CID itself, Mann said the investigation into U. Virginia is essentially a “witch hunt.”
“Every investigation that has been issued thus far has found no indications of wrongdoing,” Mann said. “The very claims that [Cuccinelli] is drawing from the hacked e-mails and allegations he is making have been thoroughly discredited by every inquiry.”