After 35 years at UCLA, environmental health sciences professor and researcher James Enstrom is scheduled to lose his job in a few weeks. Enstrom was first let go from UCLA after he blew the whistle on a California Air Resources Board (CARB) researcher’s fake Ph.D., challenged the science behind environmental regulations involving air pollution in California, and challenged the legality of the composition of the CARB. To make a very long story short: UCLA brought forth a variety of meritless allegations, FIRE intervened in August of 2010, Reason.tv produced this video, state legislators got involved, Enstrom became represented by former FIRE President David French at the American Center for Law & Justice, and UCLA kept delaying the final blow. It appears that Enstrom and UCLA are down to their last chance to resolve their differences.

Probably the most concerning allegation of all by UCLA was that Enstrom no longer fit the "mission" of his department. If there is anywhere we need honest scientists who don’t think of themselves as on the kind of mission that excludes whistleblowers and skeptics, it is the American university.

FIRE will keep you updated here on The Torch as usual.