Correction appended: Oct. 24, 2012.
Penn State professor Michael Mann filed a defamation suit Tuesday against two publishers, according to court documents.
Journalists for the National Review Inc. and the Competitive Enterprise Institute –– Ran Simberg and Mark Steyn –– wrote that Mann committed academic fraud and compared him to former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse, according to the documents.
Documents stated that “the Sandusky scandal presented a new avenue to castigate Dr. Mann and impugn his reputation and integrity.”
Mann is a professor in the meteorology department at Penn State.
His work on global warming has been recognized nationally as one of the first to discover rising surface temperatures in the 20th century. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Simberg and Steyn called Mann’s work a “hoax” and argued that he fabricated his data for the results.
Mann was cleared by the National Science Foundation in August 2011, which found that he had not fabricated data.
Read tomorrow's edition of the Collegian for full coverage.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the names of one publisher named in a suit filed by Mann and the name of a journalist who wrote about Mann. The suit involves journalists from the National Review Inc. and the Competitive Enterprises Institute, Ran Simberg and Mark Steyn. The Daily Collegian apologizes for this error.
