Gov. O'Malley Scolds Law Students for Farm Suit

BERLIN -- Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley believes it's an "injustice" and "a misuse of state resources" for University of Maryland students and professors to aid the environmental group suing a Berlin farm family over water pollution allegations.

In a two-page letter to the dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, O'Malley suggested the dean review whether the school's environmental law clinic should be participating in the lawsuit, set for a March trial in federal court."I am not advocating that the government should dictate the clients clinics may represent or the cases they should undertake," O'Malley wrote in the Nov. 14 letter. "But it is my strong belief that this case, at this juncture, is a misuse of state resources. This case, at this juncture, perpetrates an injustice."

It does strike me as odd that a law school is lending it's strength and influence to a collection of  relatively powerful public/private institutions suing a relatively weak truly private institution. Kind of seems like piling on...