A law professor who helped draft legislation to force oil, gas, and coal companies to pay for harm done to the climate due to their work is now being pressured by a conservative group through a lawsuit against her University.

Rachel Rothschild, an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Law School, wrote a detailed memorandum in April 2022 which was first published by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. Her unique memo, describing a proposed State Polluter Pays Climate Superfund Program, offered new legal strategies to fight climate change. Now, the law school where Ms. Rothschild teaches is being sued by a large conservative group with roots in gas, oil, and coal firms.

In the memo describing the new approach, Ms. Rothschild writes, “The Program would require companies that profited from greenhouse gas pollution to pay a portion of the state’s climate change driven spending, specifically infrastructure projects designed to avoid, moderate, or repair damage caused by climate change. It is based on the longstanding legal doctrine known as the “polluter-pays” principle, which stipulates that the entities responsible for pollution should be financially liable for the resulting harms. Companies that emitted greenhouse gases above a specified threshold would be deemed “responsible parties” and required to pay compensation to the state. The amount of each company’s financial contribution would be determined proportionally to their share of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions during a covered period, such as January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2018.”

Ms. Rothschild was the brainchild for these new strategies now being used in some new legislation creating a “climate superfund,” saying that states could force fossil fuel companies to pay for any extreme wildfires or floods that are made more harmful due to the use of their products.

Vermont passed such legislation in 2024, with the help of the professor’s work to enact the law, and New York followed.

After the bill was passed in Vermont, a group that goes by the name of Government Accountability and Oversight, P.C., requested the University of Michigan Law School to share Professor Rothschild’s emails with them, and the school refused.

After the university’s refusal to share private emails with Government Accountability and Oversight last June, the organization, with links to President Trump (a major funder of the group is the CEO of a large coal company aligned with the president), sued the school. In court documents, they requested that Ms. Rothschild partake in a deposition.

The attorneys for Government Accountability and Oversight argued in the suit that the University of Michigan Law School must follow Michigan’s Public Records Law, which is housed under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This law states that the public has the right to inspect and copy most public records held by state and local government bodies, including agencies, departments, commissions, and universities.”

However, the Public Records Law offers exemptions, especially in regard to “sensitive information.”

The University of Michigan Law School recently filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In its legal request for dismissal of the suit, the university argues that Ms. Rothschild’s emails are private and written on her own private email account and are therefore not subject to the Public Records Act.

In a public statement by the University of Michigan Law School, interim Dean of the university Kyle Logue said, “Legal actions and public records requests may be used in a manner that can intimidate or silence scholars, and when that happens, it threatens not only the targeted individuals but also the progress of knowledge and informed debate.”

Ms. Rothschild, however, must appear for the requested deposition.

The attempt to obtain emails and the subsequent lawsuit against the University of Michigan Law School appears to be part of a broader strategy pursued by the GAO and its contemporaries. In an amicus brief filed in 2021 in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the case of Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C., v. the Regents of the University of California, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund described a “growing trend of abuse of public-records laws to chill academic discourse and research in climate science and other fields.” The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund said in its brief that “Over the past decade, special interest groups opposed to climate-science research have used overbroad public records requests to discourage that research,” referring to the practice as the “weaponization of public-records laws” that “achieves little beyond chilling inquiry and innovation.”

Currently, the Trump administration is fighting to overturn climate laws, especially when those laws fine fossil fuel companies liable for damages for climate harm.

Ms. Rothschild’s memorandum has been shared with Congress, and over 30 lawsuits have been filed by numerous states against fossil fuel companies, requesting they pay for climate harm their products have caused. To date, Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Connecticut are discussing using the new climate superfund laws, based upon Ms. Rothschild’s memorandum.

The attorney generals in 22 states, all with a conservative majority, are challenging the New York law in federal court.

Ms. Rothschild, in a public statement, talked about her pro-bono work on the now-famous memorandum.

“I’m proud of the fact that I do a lot of pro bono work in areas where I have particular expertise, and I was glad I could help states like Vermont and New York draft these laws,” she said.