The UT Board of Regents wants to award Former Vice President Al Gore an honorary doctorate. They’re voting on it it today. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The proposal was approved by the UT Board of Trustees Academic Affairs and Student Success Committee, but the proposal will go before the full board for final approval this afternoon. Trustees are on the UT Martin campus for their winter board meeting.

As a donor to the UT system, I pledge to NEVER give my alma mater another dime if this happens.

If you are just as outraged as me, call the Chancellor’s office at 865-974-3265. Tell the administration and the Trustees that this is not acceptable. Also join the Facebook Page.

Why does UT want to recognize someone who is currently in the spotlight for pushing questionable science? Regardless of how you feel about Climate Change, should you give such a high honor to someone who is possibly a flake? Al Gore should not be honored by the University. It’s even more sketchy since he endowed the department chair of the degree he would be getting. Can anyone pay to play to get an honorary degree?

Look at the situation.

The now infamous hockey stick graph that he used in an Inconvenient Truth has been debunked.

The IPCC is distancing themselves from Climate Change science.

Senator Inhofe is threatening to haul Gore before the Senate for a hearing on Climate Change.

There are calls for Al Gore to return his Nobel Prize, which is one of the reasons the UT Trustees want to recognize him. Per the KNS article:

Board vice chairman Jim Murphy encouraged trustees not to view the honorary degree as an endorsement of Gore’s advocacy areas or political beliefs but as a way to recognize Gore as an accomplished Tennessean who has received national acclaim. By shying away from awarding honorary degrees to people who are deemed too controversial, “more people would be disqualified from receiving honorary degrees,” Murphy said.

“Not many Tennesseans have received the Nobel Prize – that alone distinguishes Al Gore from many other folks,” Murphy said. “The area of his current advocacy is an area UT and Oak Ridge National Lab have a significant area of expertise, and it’s an area we need to promote that area across the globe. Nothing will do that more than (presenting the honorary degree to Gore).”

This can only bring disgrace and ridicule to the University of Tennessee. Why recognize someone this controversial? The earned media isn’t worth the reputation and potential loss in donation dollars. This is a bad move.

As the Center for a Just Society noted, Al Gore has not been very prominent in answering the recent challenges to Climate Change credibility:

In the face of the embarrassing Climategate scandal and an unprecedented winter season that has for the first time ever delivered measurable snowfall to all 50 states, Al Gore’s absence from the public stage has been conspicuous.  Perhaps he’s taken a page from Punxsutawney Phil’s playbook and is hibernating in hopes of a sunnier forecast come April.

Why is the University doing this now? In a time when corporations and scientists are distancing themselves from climate change research, this only makes UT look foolish and will hurt them in the future. Students at Penn State have protested the actions of Professor Michael Mann. Why does UT want to willingly walk into this controversy?

Also at Instapundit and Post Politics.