Last summer a scandal at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville jolted U. S. academia, as well as a good chunk of the general populace in the State and in neighboring Washington, DC. The governor-appointed Rector of the school’s “Board of Visitors,” the Tidewater-area businesswoman Helen Dragas, worked behind the back of the school’s President, Teresa Sullivan, to secure the support of a majority of the board for the latter’s ouster.

There has been a certain amount of rhetoric to the effect that Dragas and Sullivan have worked well together following the latter’s reinstatement, with no bad blood between them, but now there is a new flareup.

When I first heard news in the beginning of the summer of a coup underway at the University of Virginia, I wondered idly if it had anything to do with climate change—specifically, ousted (and since reinstated) President’s Teresa Sullivan’s defense of the former UVA professor behind the “hockey stick” graph documenting its existence against state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli’s demands for every email/paper/grant application/log/cocktail napkin/etc. he touched during his seven years at the school.