After less than a year as the University of Pennsylvania’s first Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action, Mann has been forced to resign. From the infamous “hockey stick” graph that put him on the map, to his endless courtroom brawls against critics, Mann has thrived on confrontation. To understand why this happened, you have to know about Penn’s new “institutional neutrality” policy. But for Mann, neutrality was never an option. Now, with his resignation at Penn, Mann once again finds himself exiting not on a note of triumph but of failure.