A watchdog organization filed a complaint Monday accusing the University of Hawaii of unlawfully withholding public records that reveal whether climate activists and legal advocates influence climate lawsuits. [some emphasis, links added]
The Patriots Foundation (TPF), an Iowa-based nonprofit, alleges the university improperly denied five public records requests under Hawaii’s Uniform Information Practices Act.
The University refused access to professors’ communications, and event records reveal climate activists, advocacy groups, and university-affiliated scholars coordinating efforts to influence judges handling climate lawsuits through judicial education programs.
“This is a sort of continued trend; we’re seeing it around the country because these public school professors don’t really want to turn over their stuff, they’re afraid of the sunlight,” Jason Torchinsky, attorney for The Patriots Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
According to the complaint, TPF requested communications involving University of Hawaii professors, climate law organizations and members of the judiciary to investigate whether “judicial education” programs were used to influence judges overseeing climate change litigation.
The non-profit contends the university’s refusal to produce those records has prevented public scrutiny of those alleged efforts.
“TPF’s purpose of the requests was to investigate whether activists and lawyers have tried to access Hawaii judges who are overseeing climate change cases, through judicial education, and improperly and surreptitiously influence them into ruling for the plaintiffs,” the complaint states.
7.29.26 University of Hawaii – UIPA Complaint Clean by Paris Apodaca
According to the complaint, the university denied some records requests without providing a legally sufficient explanation and, in one instance, reversed an earlier decision to grant a request.
The requested documents include communications between University of Hawaii professors and outside organizations involved in climate litigation, records relating to climate law events, and a recording of a guest lecture delivered by now-retired Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Michael Wilson, appointed by former Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who was known for prioritizing environmental policy.
TPF says the requests are part of a broader investigation into whether climate activists and trial lawyers sought to influence judges hearing climate cases through judicial education programs.
Central to that investigation is the Environmental Law Institute and its Climate Judiciary Project, which TPF alleges developed judicial education programs designed to advance climate litigation while presenting them as neutral educational events.
“As has been publicly reported, the Environmental Law Institute (“ELI”) and its Climate Judiciary Project (“CJP”) have worked to ‘develop a body of law to support climate action,’ disguised it as judicial education, hid their true intentions and funding sources, and reached over 2,000 judges nationwide,” read the complaint.
Among the records sought are communications involving professors Richard Wallsgrove, Chip Fletcher and Denise Antolini, as well as documents relating to the university’s 2019 “Climate Change Science and Litigation” event.
TPF argues those materials could help determine the extent of interactions among climate advocates, university faculty, and members of the judiciary.
Wallsgrove directs the University of Hawaii’s Environmental Law Clinic and was former co-Editor-in-Chief of the University of Hawaii’s law review. Fletcher, a climate scientist and avid public speaker, serves as the dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.
Antolini is an emeritus law professor who served as the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs from August 2011 through December 2019 and specializes in climate law.
In her Law Review article on Justice Wilson’s Legacy of Climate Change Jurisprudence and Advocacy, she explained the connections between all the professors and Justice Wilson.
“The welfare of the planet depends on the just application of climate jurisprudence,” Justice Michael Wilson said in a 2025 interview, according to Antolini’s Law Review article.
In the 1990s, Wilson had also led the Save Sandy Beach campaign in Hawaii and led strategic litigation teams focused on the environment, the review noted.
“Mike has always been an environmentalist at heart-and judges are people too-so I am sure his passion for Hawai’i and its natural resources prompted him to keep up with the news, which increasingly included mention of climate change,” Antolini described her friend Wilson in the review.
“[Wilson] became deeply involved in the creation of the innovative Hawai’i Environmental Court and with “green judges” across the globe through the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN),” Antolini continued.
Justice Wilson actively met with climate activists, judges, academics, and nonprofits from across the world, which has influenced his perspective, even going so far as to see Fletcher’s climate lectures, according to Antolini’s law review.
Antolini also mentioned in the review how their band of “rabblerousers” came together at the Richardson Law School to create a public education and action campaign for the environmental cause in Hawaii.
The University of Hawaii’s “Climate Change Science and Litigation” event, held May 3, 2019, featured presentations by Wallsgrove, Fletcher and Antolini. Fletcher presented research on the impacts of climate change in Hawaii, highlighting projected increases in hurricane intensity, sea-level rise and tidal flooding.
TPF cites the 2019 conference as one of the events central to its investigation. The conference featured presentations from Wallsgrove, Fletcher and Antolini, as well as climate advocates discussing climate science, renewable energy and climate accountability.
In Fletcher’s presentation, he noted that “Renewable energy needs to grow by over 300 GW per year between 2018 and 2030 to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.” His presentation influenced law, through scientific proof for “climate change.”
During the same panel, Nancy Cole, senior strategist and corporate campaign advisor for the Union of Concerned Scientists, delivered a presentation titled Climate Accountability.
“It is extremely likely (95-100% probability of an outcome or result) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” Cole’s slide read.
“It would take Niagara Falls flowing for more than 18 years to equal the amount of sea level rise brought by [Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Peabody Energy, BP and ConocoPhillips] since 1980,” one of the concluding slides read.
The Patriots Foundation (TPF), an Iowa-based non-profit that promotes government transparency, monitors policymakers and encourages voter participation, has gathered substantial public records from the CJP. This makes the third suit filed in Hawaii related to the public records requests at the University of Hawaii.
The filing follows a congressional push against what many characterize as the climate litigation activist machine using Republican Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman’s proposed Stop Climate Shakedowns Act.
At a late-July Capitol Hill briefing, panelists discussed a similar 2012 climate law event that set the tone for how activists and trial attorneys could create climate legislation through the courts.
Read more at AOL
