Apparently the law doesn’t apply to everyone equally in Delaware. Climate alarmists get protection; climate skeptics—don’t.
 
When the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the University of Delaware (UD) for information related to three faculty members who had as part of their employment done work for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UD Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence White refused on the grounds that the information sought “does not relate to the expenditure of public funds.”
 
But when Greenpeace sued UD for information related to the work of Dr. David Legates, a UD Professor of Climatology and from State Climatologist 2005–2011, White demanded that Legates turn over the information—and indeed more information than Greenpeace even requested—despite the fact that none of it related “to the expenditure of public funds.”
 
Dr. Legates is a Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow, and another UD faculty member, Dr. Jan Blits, Professor in the University Honors Program and the 2011 Jeanne Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award winner, has come to his defense with a searing indictment of White’s actions at MindingtheCampus.com.
 
“Under Delaware state law, FOIA requests to the University for a faculty member’s academic materials are limited to activities supported by state funding,” Blits explained. “During Legates’ tenure, the State Climate Office received no state (or University) funding. Nor did Legates receive any state funds for his work as State Climatologist, and the State Climate Office never undertook activities concerning ‘global climate change.’ In short, none of Legates’ work fell within the scope of the FOIA request.”
 
Nonetheless, White “decided that Legates must provide more than Greenpeace had requested, not only all State Climate Office documents, but all documents he had on global climate change, whether or not Greenpeace had requested them.”
 
You can read more about this egregious violation of Dr. Legates’s academic freedom here. Suffice it to say that political correctness seems to trump state law and academic freedom at UD.

And that’s common in the battles over climate change.