Virginia's attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, has reissued a controversial demand for documents that he says may show that a prominent climate scientist, Michael E. Mann, violated a Virginia fraud statute in applying for a research grant while he was a faculty member at the University of Virginia. The new request, first reported by The Washington Post, comes a month after a state judge threw out Mr. Cuccinelli's original demand that the university turn over a decade's worth of documents, saying that it had failed to explain the allegations under investigation and that four of the five grants Mr. Cuccinelli said he was investigating were federal grants not covered by the state law, while the fifth grant was made before the law took effect, in 2003.

In his new demand, Mr. Cuccinelli omits the four federal grants, but says that "claims for payment and at least some payment" under ...

The University of Central Oklahoma and the coach of its debate team are being sued by 12 former students and employees who say that he pressured them to party with him on out-of-town trips, that he tried to persuade a freshman team member to have sex with him, and that two assistant coaches were fired after people complained to a dean about the coach's behavior. The suit also says that the coach, Eric Marlow, smoked marijuana in the debate room and threatened to take away the freshman's debate scholarship, according to The Oklahoman, an Oklahoma City newspaper. A university spokesman said he could not comment on the case because the university's lawyers had not yet seen suit.

South Carolina has cut spending on higher education so much that it may not be eligible to receive $143-million in federal money under the stimulus bill that Congress passed earlier this month, the Associated Press reports. State education officials and members of South Carolina's Congressional delegation are scrambling to see whether they can find a way around changes in a provision in the stimulus bill that makes the money available only to states that have maintained their own education spending at given rates. In earlier bills, a similar provision calculated a state's eligibility by looking at its total education spending, but the latest measure requires states to maintain spending levels for both K-12 and higher-education programs. South Carolina's total spending would have met the earlier requirement, but cuts to money for colleges apparently mean it fails the newer test.

The University of Houston's Board of Regents voted Tuesday morning to buy Rice University's 50,000-watt student-run radio station, KTRU, for $9.5-million, according to a University of Houston news release. If the sale is approved by federal authorities, the new owners would end the station's current mix of eclectic student-oriented programming and create a new classical-music station with the call letters KUHC. The University of Houston's current public-radio station, KUHF, would move to an all-news format. A Rice University press release said that KTRU's audience "is often too small to be measured" and that the station would continue as an online-only operation, but the station's managers and DJs set up a Save KTRU Web site and a similar page on Facebook and began broadcasting appeals for support.

Washington State University says it will save between $700,000 and $900,000 by eliminating three of its nine vice-president positions in a reorganization, the Associated Press reports. A university spokesman said the institution was preparing for budget cuts of between 4 and 7 percent. No faculty or staff members will lose their jobs as a consequence of the reorganization, the spokesman said.

DeVry Inc., which owns a variety of for-profit colleges, said Friday that its earnings had grown 93 percent in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, thanks to increasing enrollment and soaring revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company's profit in the three months ending June 30 totaled $71.6-million, or 99 cents a share, compared with $37-million for the same quarter a year earlier. The company's revenue climbed 28 percent, to $506.7-million. The company said enrollment was up throughout its colleges.

University of North Carolina students who obtain health insurance through the university system will now have the option of dropping the plan's standard abortion coverage, according to the Associated Press. Erskine Bowles, the system's president, asked the university's insurance provider to make the option available after students who oppose abortion complained about being required to purchase abortion coverage if they get their insurance through the system. This fall the system will begin requiring all of the system's students to prove that they have health insurance, either through the university or otherwise. University officials said the cost of the university-provided insurance would be the same with or without the abortion coverage.

Should Louisiana's interim higher-education commissioner be making $25,000 a month—plus $1,500 a month for housing and $600 for a car? The state legislature's Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget will answer that question Thursday when the contract between the Board of Regents and the interim commissioner, Tom Layzell, comes up for a vote. Already Rep. Jim Fannin, the committee chairman, has said the pay package seems excessive for an interim chief, according to the Associated Press. And the vice chairman, Sen. Mike Michot, said, "The Legislature and the public are really at the point now that they're questioning the kind of high salaries and that people aren't taking any pay cuts and making any sacrifices of their own" while institutions are laying off professors and staff members. The controversy comes just two months after Sally Clausen resigned as higher-education commissioner...

Chicago's mayor, Richard M. Daley, has thrown his support behind a suggestion that the City Colleges of Chicago end its policy of admitting all applicants. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the mayor said on Tuesday that the city could no longer afford the $30-million cost of remedial courses for students unprepared for college-level work. Mr. Daley announced late last month that the colleges would lay off 225 "non-instructional" employees and eliminate 86 unfilled positions.

The newspaper said the idea of ending the open-door admissions policy for the 115,000-student system was put forth last week by the system's new board chairman, Gery J. Chico, during a meeting with the newspaper's editorial board.

In a new brief challenging the Virginia attorney general's sweeping request for documents concerning a prominent climate scientist, Michael E. Mann, the University of Virginia told a state court today that the attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, had no legal authority under a Virginia fraud statute to seek the documents, The Washington Post reported.

The university argues, among other things, that the fraud statute was not written in a way that permits investigations of state agencies. The university also says the statute requires requests for documents to "state the nature of the conduct constituting the alleged violation"—which the attorney general's request failed to do, saying only that it was issued "in connection with an investigation" into possible violations. And the university notes that four of the five grants mentioned in the attorney general's request involved...