A three-member review team convened by UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter has concluded that the university did not retaliate against medical professor Michael Wilkes after he published an Oct. 1, 2010, opinion article critical of a health program sponsored by the UC Davis Health System.  

While the independent review team found that the majority of allegations could not be sustained, it characterized an Oct. 19, 2010, letter from a health system attorney to Wilkes as inappropriate. 

Hexter convened the review team last spring, after the UC Davis Academic Senate adopted resolutions expressing disapproval of several administrative communications to Wilkes and calling for the administration to take concrete steps to protect academic freedom.

In the October letter, the health system attorney acknowledged the professor’s academic freedom but advised of potential liability based on the content of the opinion article.

The opinion article, published in the San Francisco Chronicle, was critical of a health system-sponsored event that included information about PSA testing to screen for prostate cancer.

Calling academic freedom “of paramount importance to the vitality of our academic community,” Hexter pledged that he and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi will continue to work collaboratively with the Academic Senate to affirm “the right of all faculty to publish scholarly articles and professional expert commentaries on controversial topics.”

“No university communication should convey even the appearance of impropriety with regard to academic freedom,” Hexter said.

As a first step, Hexter said that he and the chancellor will host a forum for the campuswide discussion of academic freedom. The forum will be developed in consultation with the Academic Senate and faculty with expertise in academic freedom and will be attended by senior administrators and university counsel.

Members of the review team were Ashutosh Bhagwat, a professor of law at UC Davis; Neal H. Cohen, vice dean at the UCSF School of Medicine; and Sheila O’Rourke, director of Faculty and Postdoctoral Diversity Initiatives at UC Berkeley.

The review team's findings of fact.