Climate scientist and Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael Mann is challenging attacks on his work and character in a defamation suit that is finally being tried after 12 years, writes Delger Erdenesanaa for The New York Times.

Prior to joining Penn’s faculty, Mann was an associate professor in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University. During his time at Penn State, a conservative media outlet and a right-leaning research organization published articles in which the writers compared the scientist with Jerry Sandusky, the school’s former football coach convicted of sexually assaulting multiple children.

They also claimed that he made fraudulent graphs in his research.

In a rare instance of a scientist defending their work and themselves, Mann sued the writers and their publishers for libel and slander. Over a decade later, the case is being tried in the District of Columbia Superior Court, with just the two writers as individuals on trial.

“For me to be compared to Jerry Sandusky, as the father of a 6-year-old girl, was maybe the worst thing that I’ve ever experienced,” Mann testified in court. “I felt like a pariah in my own community.”

The court case played out at a time when deniers are focusing less on the outright denial of climate and more on besmirching scientists’ integrity.

It has caught the attention of climate scientists and legal scholars, among others.

Read more about Michael Mann and his court case at The New York Times.

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