Senator Helps Revive Medical-School Dean's Battle With U. of California

A legal tussle between the University of California at San Francisco and David A. Kessler, its fired medical-school dean, appeared to be easing up at least somewhat when both sides agreed this year to suspend Dr. Kessler’s lawsuit while a university review panel hears his case.

Now, thanks to Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the battle may break out again.

Senator Grassley, who has made a reputation of criticizing medical-school ethics nationwide, has written to the university suggesting that its handling of Dr. Kessler may reflect not only financial problems on the San Francisco campus, but possibly a wider problem with how the University of California system manages federal research money.

The senator, in his letter to Mark G. Yudof, the system’s president, said he had “grave concern” about Dr. Kessler’s allegations of poor accounting practices at an institution that collects hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research spending each year, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

UC-San Francisco removed Dr. Kessler, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, from his position as its medical-school dean in December 2007 after Dr. Kessler complained repeatedly about financial irregularities that the university said it was unable to substantiate.

Dr. Kessler, in a subsequent federal lawsuit, said he had discovered “major discrepancies” in the medical school’s financial affairs after he arrived, in 2003, but was warned by top university officials that he should stop complaining about the matter. He contended in his lawsuit that Richard C. Blum, now chairman of the university’s Board of Regents, told him in July 2007 that raising “the financial stuff” was “the cancer” and that “if you piss people off for the right reason,” they will “figure out some way to get back at you.”

A federal judge agreed in March to postpone the case, however, after both sides said they were willing to await the outcome of an internal university grievance procedure that is now under way. —Paul Basken