E. Gordon Gee is a Doctor of Education, but he needs to learn that you can't have it both ways on clean energy.

Gee, who is President of Ohio State University, has been urged to leave the board of Massey Energy, a company with a less than stellar environmental record.

Massey Energy has been criticized for the practice of mountaintop removal mining and Clean Water Act (CWA) violations. Massey agreed to pay $20 million, one of the largest civic penalties issued by the EPA, for over 4,500 violations including illegal dumping that were committed between 2000 and 2006.

The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice issued a joint statement that Gee's involvement with Massey is “undermining [his] own standing as an advocate for clean energy… and confers undeserved credibility on Massey’s terrible environmental record.”

Gee's involvement with Massey was criticized by Ohio Citizen Action board president, Ellis Jacobs, wrote Gee to urge him to step down from the Massey board in February.

A March article by the Associated Press referred to Gee as wearing “two energy hats,” -- as an advocate for clean energy while also being a defender of Massey’s business practices. He was quoted in the OSU student newspaper the Lantern as saying “If you take a look at Massey’s record, it has one of the best environmental records in the country.”

Gee serves as Chairman of Massey's Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee, but at the same time is co-chair of the Energy Initiative Advisory Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

He was recently quoted as saying that "We have in this country, and in our institutions of higher education, an innovation imperative," and that government, industry and universities must develop cleaner-burning fuels.

Massey is the subject of frequent West Virginia protests, as their mountaintop shearing technique for coal acquisition damages forests, water quality and threatens the health of nearby residents, according to environmentalists.

The activist group, Climate Ground Zero, was working to raise awareness of the danger presented by Massey’s operation in West Virginia. The group says a nearby elementary school is put at risk by a waste impoundment, holding over two billion gallons of coal sludge, and a coal loading silo, which results in coal dust and diesel fumes.

West Virginia residents in Mingo County contended recently with flooding that may have been contributed to by mining. A Massey subsidiary, Rawl Sales & Processing, was issued a cessation order because of drainage failures led to water overflowing into the yards and basements of nearby homes, according to state spokeswoman, Kathy Cosco, of the Department of Environmental Protection.

A Mingo County judge has also decided earlier this month to combine hundreds of water pollution lawsuits against Rawl Sales over claims that 1.4 billion gallons of coal slurry had been pumped into abandoned mines, contaminating well water and leading to health problems.

The full letter can be found here.