PIXABAY, SONELLast year, it was Michael Mann and “Climategate.” Now it’s Kevin Folta and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In both cases, journalists or activists are using federal law to peek at professors’ emails, stirring the debate about transparency in academia.
The latest saga began earlier this year when a nonprofit organization called US Right to Know requested—and received—Folta’s correspondence with agricultural giant Monsanto through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which allows for public release of documents from federal agencies. Folta studies fruit crop genomics, and the emails revealed that Monsanto had provided funds for Folta’s public communication outreach project.
“This is a great 3rd-party approach to developing the advocacy that we’re looking to develop,” Michael Lohuis, the director of crop biometrics at Monsanto, wrote in a 2014 email to Folta, The New York Times—which also requested the correspondence—reported last week.
Folta told the New York Times that “nobody tells me what to say,” but that he understood why others could perceive the hand of ...
