As major corporations and businesses continue to see the light over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and it is flushed by Donald Trump out of the more resistant organisations such as the civil service and quangos in the United States, true to form, academia is manning (oops) the woke barricades. More specifically, academic publishing is making clear its determination to fight back.
In a brilliant example of how to join a series of disparate dots, half-truths and downright nonsense and arrive at a predetermined conclusion, the Scholarly Kitchen, official blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing in America, has run an article written on behalf of the C4DISC (Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications) titled ‘DEIA and Doing the Right Thing’. The ‘A’ stands for ‘accessibility’.
According to the Scholarly Kitchen, the piece says, regarding the academic publishing community, “Now is a time when we must continue to stand against censorship.” But when and by whom they are being censored is not clear. The irony that it is the woke/DEI brigade who patently impose more censorship, in the form of cancellations, no-platforming and social media pile-ons, than anyone, is clearly lost on them.
Naturally, it all started with the ‘murder’ of George Floyd in 2020 which led to an “outpouring of support for… DEIA initiatives in general”. No mention of the facts that Floyd was a dangerous drug-addicted thug and that it has subsequently been argued that he was not killed but died due to other causes. Thus inspired, organisations related to academic publishing apparently ‘reinvigorated’ their efforts to implement DEIA.
The process is now being reversed and, not surprisingly, C4DISC doesn’t like it. It is “cause for serious alarm” and major organisations under executive orders (deemed “possibly illegal” by C4DISC) are “censoring all references to anything remotely related to DEIA from their websites”. Perhaps it is right in referring to this as censorship, but it provides no insight into why this is taking place.
The removal of DEIA information from websites stems from a change in policy away from policies that prioritised diversity over ability, equity over equality of opportunity, and inclusion of certain groups to the possible exclusion of others. When doubts are raised about the competence of firefighters and pilots hired under DEI policies, surely it is time to act.
C4DISC claims its vision is “a socially just community that welcomes, values and celebrates all who seek to contribute to scholarly communications”. This is all very well, but if it leads to the best person for a job being overlooked in favour of an ideology then, surely, it ought to be stopped.
A toolkit is provided for continuing action in support of DEIA, which includes some advice for those in a position to implement it. One gem of inherent contradiction is that those hiring staff should “focus on everything an individual can or does bring to their role; their lived, as well as their professional, experience”. Presumably C4DISC uses a different definition of ‘focus’ from the rest of the world.
Members are urged to “Seek out examples of research showing the value of DEIA to organisations, and of successful organisations that are continuing to support it”. Presumably they should ignore and not report any examples which show that DEIA is either useless or harmful, which sounds a lot like censorship.
Modelling inclusivity in the language used by members is another weapon for the DEIA obsessed. Thus, the use of ‘position paper’ or ‘industry briefing’ rather than ‘white paper’ and ‘legacy’ instead of ‘grandfathered’ (does anyone say that?) are the preferred options. One imagines they have reems of such examples to draw on given the way organisations such as Oxfam and universities delight in drawing up lists of microaggressions and how to avoid them.
Despair should not be normalised, according to the authors of the C4DISC article. This week they will hold an “all-day Rapid Response Sprint”, assembling resources to help members “respond to the current political landscape”. One cannot but feel that these people are manufacturing a crisis that does not exist. To say that data related to DEIA “is vital for informed, sometimes life-saving, policy- and decision-making” suggests that, perhaps, they have got all of this somewhat out of proportion. It also raises the question of what these people actually do all day if they have so much time and energy to focus (in the true sense of the word) on DEIA.
Dr Roger Watson is Professor of Nursing at Saint Francis University, Hong Kong SAR, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.
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