Opinion> Debra Saunders> Academic Mission Or Ucla Speech Code

	27 May 2012 When Will Obama Reform Presidential Pardons? As a candidate for president in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to "immediately" review federal … Read More.
	24 May 2012 In the House, Is 80 Over the Hill? When Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., lost the GOP primary to challenger Richard Mourdock this month, Beltway … Read More.
	22 May 2012 Democrats' War on Money Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., came across as a moderate, sensible Democrat when he said on "Meet … Read More.

Academic Mission or UCLA Speech Code?

If you think that academia is not the exclusive playground of the academic left, consider the fate of UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom.

In 2008, Enstrom thought that a report on the health effects of diesel emissions presented by the California Air Resources Board was faulty. As it turns out, CARB's nitrous oxide emission estimates were overstated by 340 percent. Enstrom and others had trouble believing that a Ph.D. statistician would make up some of CARB's findings. They dug around and found that CARB researcher Hien Tran had falsely claimed to have a doctorate in statistics from UC Davis. In fact, Tran had a master's degree from UC Davis, but his doctorate came from an unaccredited school.

CARB has since scaled back the diesel regulations it had previously approved — although spokesman Stanley Young asserts that the policy change "was not related to the research" — which officials have maintained were overestimated because of calculations made prior to the recession. CARB did demote Tran and cut his monthly pay by $1,066 to $7,899 per month.

Enstrom didn't fare as well.

In February 2010, after renewing his research grants regularly since 1976, UCLA notified Enstrom that he had lost his funding. Unlike Tran, he would be out of a job.

A July 2010 memo later informed Enstrom that Department of Environmental Health Sciences faculty had determined his work did not meet department requirements and "your research is not aligned with the academic mission of the Department."

Not aligned with the academic mission? That reads like academic-speak for: politically incorrect. Enstrom has little doubt that UCLA cut his cord because he was a CARB whistle blower.

Worse, his 2005 study on the health effects of fine particulate matter essentially found that the diesel exhaust has slight, if any effect, on premature death.

"The timing is almost unmistakable because I had essentially no problems for a position that started July 1, 1976," Enstrom told me over the phone. "This is extremely dangerous for academic freedom and scientific integrity."

Enstrom has been fighting his sacking. Last week, the university held hearings on his case. The university won't comment, citing privacy issues.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has taken up Enstrom's cause in the name of academic freedom. FIRE Vice President of Programs Adam Kissel explained, "We don't know who's right or wrong on the science, but we know that everyone has a right to challenge one another on the quality of the science if they do it in good faith."

CARB research chief Bart Croes said Enstrom's fine-particulates health study was not "inconsistent with ones we've used in our work," but he saw "deficiencies" in Enstrom's methodology. Some critics suggest that while his study aligned with other research, and has been cited by the U.S. EPA, his test group was too old; besides, Enstrom is too stingy with caveats and too activist in his interpretations.

Maybe the critics are right. Or maybe that's how they always go after conservatives. It's not simply that they disagree, it's that the scientist in question doesn't meet this hallowed academic standard that is rarely if ever applied to left-leaning scientists/activists. They believe in academic freedom, but that doesn't mean they should have to tolerate dissent.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Comments

1 Comments | Post Comment

Not sure if the problem is with U.C. or with CARB. CARB has been off on all kinds of adventures saving the world at everyone else's expense. A little more on these scaled back diesel regulations: Part of CARB's holy mission was to have all off-road vehicles in the state retro-fitted with exhaust scrubbers to reduce emissions of particulates.

CARB crowed about how many thousands of lives would be saved by the reduction in particulate emissions, using very fancy and highly theoretical risk assessment modeling fueled by the same faulty Tran research. This problem couldn't wait for the newer vehicles, which are manufactured with adequate scrubbers, to replace the old fleet by attrition. The mission was so urgent that the old vehicles had to be retro-fitted with after-market products, at the construction industry's expense, of course.

CARB never bothered to figure out whether the technology actually existed in any practical form to retrofit these vehicles. They just tried to order the construction industry to figure it out and do it, assuming that the millions of dollars they would spend would get CARB the result it wanted.

The only solution in many cases turned out to be a sad choice among big fat canisters to be placed at the end of vehicle exhaust pipes that significantly impaired the vision of the vehicle driver, jeopardizing the safety of workers who often get injured by backing accidents involving these vehicles even without the retrofit.

Did CARB care about the potential for this holy environmental cleansing exercise to injure or kill construction workers? Nope. It wasn't--you guessed it--politically correct. Or should we say that worrying about this unsexy little problem just didn't meet the vanity and fashion dictates of the left.

CARB was so off target on this one that they managed to bring together California history's first alliance between a construction union, the Operating Engineers, and the Associated General Contractors of California, a construction industry lobbying organization. They joined together to fight off CARB, and fortunatelly, have succeeded.

This is probably a big part of what is going on in Stanley Young's head when he says that the policy change was not related to the research, not to mention the fact that Schwarzenegger's assistants smacked CARB's Executive Officer upside the head when they found out what a dumb thing CARB was trying to do.

Comment: #1
Posted by: Masako
Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:18 AM