A public hearing will be held Monday to determine if a restraining order to stop the transfer of plant specimens from the University of Iowa to Iowa State will be upheld.

The hearing will be held at 2 p.m. Monday at the Sixth District Court in Iowa City.

The lawsuit was filed against the University of Iowa on Feb. 27 by a group of Iowa professors and students, Johnson County residents and Friends of the University of Iowa Herbarium to prevent moving 250,000 plant specimens from the Iowa Herbarium to Iowa State, according to court documents.

The plaintiffs were granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday preventing transfer of the collection, said Paul Tanaka, counsel to Iowa State.

According to the petition, the group contends the December 2001 agreement to bring the plants to Iowa State was unlawful and violated university policies.

Diana Horton, U of I associate professor of biological sciences and curator for the University of Iowa Herbarium, is opposed to the transfer. She said the herbarium is a critical resource not only for Iowa’s environmental science program, but also for its Liberal Arts and Sciences education in general.

“I had never even been informed about what was going on,” she said.

Once Horton learned about the transfer, she began working with other opposed individuals to lobby for reconsideration of the decision.

Since then, there have been meetings with university officials, more than 90 letters and e-mails of protest sent to administrators and a petition of more than 1,500 signatures of faculty, students and residents sent to University of Iowa President David Skorton.

The petition said a transfer will severely reduce plant biodiversity studies in eastern Iowa, because, if moved to Ames, the collection and research area will be inaccessible to U of I researchers.

Lynn Clark, director of the Ada Hayden Herbarium at Iowa State, said she is unsure whether the transfer will affect research and discovery at Iowa State.

She said what is important is that “researchers are out there doing the work.”

Iowa administrators said the herbarium’s transfer was approved for two reasons: financial strain on the University of Iowa and lack of available space after a planned renovation in the university’s chemistry building, where the plant collection is currently housed, she said.

Horton said she disagreed with that reasoning.

Although state universities have faced $100 million in budget cuts over the past three years, moving this collection would save Iowa very little money, she said.

The Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, an environmental group receiving its funding directly from the Iowa Legislature — independent of the university’s budget — pledged continuing funds for the herbarium’s one staff position, she said.

The staff position is the main expense for the herbarium, and without it the facility’s maintenance would cost Iowa $5,000 a year, she said.

Horton said she believes there is additional space on campus to house the collection, as well.

“We know of over 4,000 feet of space in the heart of campus that hasn’t been utilized for at least 15 years,” Horton said.

The transfer of the dried plant specimens was scheduled to begin March 1, with the entire herbarium collection moved to Iowa State by March 15.