The New York Times isn’t the only outlet that has walked back a commentary this week amid reader outrage.
Following a flood of criticism on social media, a chemistry journal in Germany has disappeared an essay by Canadian researcher who argued that efforts to promote diversity in the field were hurting science. [See an update on this post.]
The paper, titled “‘Organic synthesis-Where Now?’ Is Thirty Years Old. A Reflection on the Current State of Affairs,” appeared in Angewandte Chemie, a journal of the German Chemical Society. The author, Tomáš Hudlický, is a senior faculty member at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, where he holds a prestigious Tier 1 Canada Research Chair. A survey of the field over recent decades, the essay focuses on several areas, including but not limited to diversity in the workforce.
From the paper:
In the last two decades many groups and/or individuals have been designated with “preferential status”. This in spite of the fact that the percentage of women and minorities in academia and pharmaceutical indutry has greatly increased. It follows that, in a social equilibrium, preferrential treatment of one group leads to disadvantagesfor another. New ideologies have appeared and influenced hiring practices, promotion, funding, and recognition of certain groups. Each candidate should have an equal opportunity to secure a position, regardless of personal identification/categorization. The rise and emphasis on hiring practices that suggest or even mandate equality in terms of absolute numbers of people in specific subgroups is counter-productive if it results in discrimination against the most meritorious candidates. Such practice affectsthe format of interviews and has led to the emergence of mandatory “training workshops” on gender equity, inclusion, diversity, and discrimination
He continues:
An example of focusing on “underrepresented minorities” can be seen in the recently established “Power Hour” at Gordon Research Conferences. While this effort is commendable in order to increase the participation of women in science it diminishes the contributions by men (or any other group). Universities have established various centers for “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion”, complete with mandatory seminars and training. These issues have influenced hiring practices to the point where the candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications.
Not surprisingly, the essay triggered outrage on Twitter. A sampling:
Heather Williams, a medical physicist at the The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, tweeted:
Cathleen Crudden, of Queen’s University in Canada, went a step further, telling the journal to remove her from its editorial board:
Hudlický acknowledged the “firestorm” on Twitter, telling Retraction Watch:
There is nothing that was intended to be inflammatory but apparently some people did not like it.
The journal has weighed in, too:
This isn’t the first time in recent memory that Wiley, which publishes the journal, has said they published something in error.
Update, 2245 UTC, 6/6/20: The Chemical Institute of Canada released a statement yesterday:
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“This isn’t the first time in recent memory that Wiley, which publishes the journal, has said they published something in error.”
This isn’t even the first time that Wiley has published some of this exact content (i.e. the diagram about the “positive” and “negative” contributors to organic synthesis).
According to the disappeared manuscript, it’s also figure 6.1 in the Way of Synthesis, published by Wiley in 2007: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Way+of+Synthesis%3A+Evolution+of+Design+and+Methods+for+Natural+Products-p-9783527320776
Was that also a mistake by Wiley?
Note – I haven’t confirmed that figure does indeed exist in the 2007 book – I’m taking the citation at face value because there’s no way I’m paying for it to confirm.
I hate to give this garbage more reach, but reading the whole thing makes it clear just how mind-boggling it is that this got “published” (or “approved” or whatever they’re calling it). Here’s someone who downloaded it before it disappeared:
https://twitter.com/fxcoudert/status/1268920299833233416
Angewandte is not some run of the mill German chemistry journal but it is one of the highest impact international chemistry journal. This is a bfd.
I really believe there is a lot of over-reaction, particularly from individuals who are tenured faculty where it certainly wouldn’t hurt them no matter what direction the wind was blowing here, so they can seem politically correct and appealing to students and administrators.
I don’t think anybody likes discrimination of any kind; what he is appealing for is a system that is as much of a meritocracy as possible. Even in his essay he admits its not as meritocratic and it should be, but he is warning against reverse discrimination which may (arguably) not allow the best people to have the best jobs.
I’m tired of tenured faculty showing their political correctness when in fact most will favor any view as long as it doesn’t hurt them professionally. Watch tenured faculty scream if there are any cuts to tenure protection based on limited productivity and demerit, and they would argue that their group is discriminated against.
The meritocracy is and always has been a lie. Whatever it is, it is surely not inhibited by efforts at diversity and inclusion. It’s inhibited by the relentless requirement that researchers be marketers and cheerleaders and an endless downward spiral of roles that are not scientists. If you want to hiring to reflect idealistic notions of academics, then you have to change what you consider merit.
I completely agree that academic research is not at all a meritocracy and preventing reverse discrimination may only bring us slightly closer to a true meritocracy amongst researchers. Yes, people who are good at shilling their relatively insignificant work, or shooting down clearly good work (in peer review to prevent award) is a worse problem. But even worse that that is 1.) the luck of some individuals to have good projects that worked well and allowed them to beat others for a faculty position who maybe are more competent because they got stuck with a crappy project, and 2.) outright fraud which allows promotion independent of merit. Those are the two biggest problems in academic science, and why I cant advise anybody with ambition to go into it. If you are a good honest researcher, the chances are too much against you.
There is nothing wrong in the statement made by authors. He is only talking about merit, and there should not be overreaction. He is only talking about merit…
What is really the difference between what these people are doing and book burning? Some people in today’s academia would have been a perfect match for hardcore Church inquisitors, the Cancel culture is a cancer and obviously detrimental for an objective approach in Science; facts don’t care about your feelings.
Meritocracy is now racism.
Emotions beat discourse.
Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
The argument that diversity efforts amount to discrimination against white males is at least 40 years old. Look at who is an academic and tell me how valid that argument is.
Straw-man argument. When did he mention White males？Are you capable of reading?
“Each candidate should have an equal opportunity to secure a position, regardless of personal identification/categorization. ”
“The rise and emphasis on hiring practices that suggest or even mandate equality in terms of absolute numbers of people in specific subgroups is counter-productive if it results in discrimination against the most meritorious candidates.”
“…where the candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications.”
Nouse, was there really a meritocracy in the preferential prioritization of white males and the deliberate exclusion of women and minorities? That was the status quo for generations. Now you try to protect it by labeling it ‘merit’ as unearned advantages are being phased out?
Yes the paper encourages less female and minority contribution Remember Alice Ball the African American woman Chemist’s
contribution never saw the recognition it deserved at the time because of her race and gender
He has his freedom of speech to express his opinions, they should not even retract his paper. You can submit a rebuttal paper to his opinions, but putting pressure in the journal to retract his paper or to issue an apology is damaging academic freedom
Terrible argument. You can discuss the objective merit of the arguments used in the paper, but a scientific mag is not a public platform to express baseless opinions, they are often published by private institutions and even when they are public, they still have standards and power to veto papers based on criteria which you could also argue about. But to go “muh freedom of speech” at this is absolutely ignorant and very, very silly.
There’s no such thing as “academic freedom”, the whole point of academy is precisely to filter out rubbish beliefs from things worth studying and debating.
When did the common sense of a person of sound intellect become rubbish? Proving his view is self-evident rubbish and your nonsense is not.
The leftists in the West are so brainwashed by politically correct beliefs to such extent that it may has surpassed the worship of Kim-Jong-Un by North Koreans.
Your aggressive attitude calls for censorship. “Each candidate
should have an equal opportunity to secure a position, regardless
of personal identification/categorization” – is this what you call rubbish belief ?!
No-one put pressure on them to retract, just expressed their views about the paper’s content and wonder at how such a paper could have made it through a peer review process in top journal (as was claimed by the journal in the article information). Many have argued that it should remain accessible with a rebuttal provided alongside so that the decision to publish this garbage can be part of the historical record.
So, stop with the strawman defence of what was some nasty cod-attempt at “social science” by a chemistry professor whose outdated views are tolerated because he brings in the research grants.
I hope this episode is a touchstone for the community to examine itself and the people it chooses to lionize. Being a great scientist does not require treated people badly.
Typical of Robespierres Revolutionaries manipulating language. Are we in 1984?
“Being a great scientist does not require treated people badly.”
Who treated people badly? Oh i guess it i now not giving privilege by color or sex, oops genre?
Actively opposing efforts to redress historic and structural inequalities in science is perpetuating those inequalities and is therefore clearly treating people badly. The fact that you cannot see that just means you are part of the edifice that is stopping proper equality and therefore a true meritocracy from prevailing.
That’s the biggest joke about this piece and it’s defenders. If they truly believed in meritocracy, they would actually support measures to attain the true equality of opportunity necessary to attain it. But they don’t, because the status quo is beneficial to them.
You talked like a 1984 character with “proper” “true” newspeak. Which is not suprising due to your marxo-racism.
Your equality is opressive, because what you want is a equal result. Note also that “equality” for you is only by the color of skin and i guess sex which put you in “nice” company.
Efforts to promote equity and diversity are objectively racist and sexist. A true meritocracy means breaking down barriers, not erecting new ones to offset perceived discrimination. Equity is directly counter to equal opportunity and should be opposed by any decent person.
I’ve literally heard the same argument (“women and minorities get extra credit”) from the mouth of my department chair (white cis-het male) and one of the research superstars in my department (white cis-het male).
I about puked.
Why does it matter that they were “white cis-het males”? Are you saying it’s okay for anyone else to have similar views?
It seems to me just about anybody from a non “white cis-het males” group would (although probably would not actively seek out) happily accept any advantage that they could get in the job market over anybody else, even if its called reverse discrimination. Especially in a very competitive area like R1 research faculty positions. IMO, this points to the hypocrisy of these complaints against the author.
“Why does it matter that they were “white cis-het males”? Are you saying it’s okay for anyone else to have similar views?”
If it is true, you don’t want the truth?
Yes, it is right; it is a reverse discrimination.
It sounds like the criticism struck home. I guess it must suck to be recognized as less competent on your merits.
“I’ve literally heard the same argument (“women and minorities get extra credit”) from the mouth of my department chair (white cis-het male) and one of the research superstars in my department (white cis-het male).
I about puked.”
You puked because you did not like to hear it, because is it true , or both or because it is lie?
She puked because for generations, white males were given actual preferential priority while women and minorities were actually deliberately excluded. This isn’t news. Now those who benefited from that preferential, non-meritorious treatment see any move towards equality as ‘extra credit’. Bull
“Now those who benefited from that preferential, non-meritorious treatment see any move towards equality as ‘extra credit’. Bull”
1984 Newspeak again. “move towards equality” then have the gall of talking about merit.
Moving towards equality of competition for all sounds pretty meritorious to me. Compared to the prior system where one specific group gets to compete and then only those with strong networks get to win. You prefer the latter I take it? To protect your economic interests?
The way forward is to examine embedded political corrrectness in countries such as Malaysia..we have completed 63 years since independence without meritocracy as a work ethic. Irrational justification of reservation from scholarship, university appts, research grants etc have created poor outputs and strangled intellectual thinking. Open thinking will level imbalance over time.
His comments are vile, and I have heard many within chemistry express basically the same thoughts – most are just sneaky/career-preserving enough and know they cannot publicly state this. I withdrew from organic chemistry myself at the graduate level due to the “total submission to PI and 80h workweek” culture this guy and many others in organic chemistry propagate. Considering his and group members’ great contributions to natural product synthesis and generally correct criticisms of experimental rigor and literature hype, extra sad his opinions seemed to have devolved further with time.
It is true that the figure is reproduced from his (mostly very good) 2007 book but at that point I believe he took a much more reasonable view, lamenting that North American institutions were less open for non-North American researchers than earlier, and that this was a bad thing.
As he is an elderly man (I believe he is around 70 y/o), we may at least consider him specifically as a relic of the old culture on the way out, but how Angewandte let this through baffles me and this is a sign that these opinions are more pervasive than we might hope, including among people from younger generations. It might surprise some how young some of the boys in the “old boys club” are.
One more thing: it is notable that Hudlický’s group is more diverse than some of the groups now calling for “serious measures” to be taken against him. I hope this will remind some to not only say the right words but also take the right actions in their own academic practices, where needed. In his case, perhaps he is truly hiring the most meritorious candidates and the diversity of his research group is direct contradiction of his statements on diversity from the article – likely the quality of his research group is higher because he did not hire only from the “traditional demographic”.
“One more thing: it is notable that Hudlický’s group is more diverse than some of the groups now calling for “serious measures” to be taken against him. I hope this will remind some to not only say the right words but also take the right actions in their own academic practices, where needed. In his case, perhaps he is truly hiring the most meritorious candidates and the diversity of his research group is direct contradiction of his statements on diversity from the article – likely the quality of his research group is higher because he did not hire only from the “traditional demographic”. ”
All this text and you still seem to not get it…there is no contradiction.
He seem to hires competent people regardless of where they come. His team was not hired because it was diverse, he hired them because probably they were in his opinion good.
He did not cared for “diversity” and no one in science should.
You are in fact anti-science since you cared for “diversity” in his team.Worse than just anti-science.
Even you seem not not be aware how todays “Diversity” is not Diverse. Does it means Introverts? no. Does it means Ugly people? no. People that like to draw? that have a more visual mind or a more mathematical mind? No.
It only means a subset of some racial and sexual characteristics that are weaponized to get political and social power.
It is almost like fashion, a tool for you to show you are at forefront of current (revolutionary)trend which makes you appear modern, it is just tool for social climbing, does not even matter if the trend goes to a cultural revolution with millions of deaths.
I am curious if you could elaborate on what exactly is it that you find vile in his comments?
What I found the most vile in his essay what the expectation that individuals in his lab should be closely directed by him (questionable, unless he has good ideas that work, which is possible) and work very long hours (worth of outrage, IMO). Again, I don’t think I’m going to see too many tenured faculty complain about those issues, because although these issues cause hardship for the people that work for faculty, it benefits the faculty.
Sure, these are the three lines of thinking I found to be vile in the essay:
-By explicitly calling such inclusive measures as having a one hour focus talk on accomplishments by women on a huge conference “anti male”, he assumes that we live in a world of full equality and honest meritocracy. In the real world, I believe there are various barriers affecting some groups much more. This is for example shown to be the case in practice when blinded vs. non-blinded applications are compared, showing that (at a minimum) implicit bias is real. To deny the reality of systemic inequality resulting from this, is unfairly dismissive to those candidates who are pushed down, discouraged or even accused to be diversity hires. (no matter how much T-Hud himself might in practice indeed hire according to true merit personally in his own group as another commenter noted)
2. The comments on “submission to the master” also have a nasty aftertaste, as specifically in synthesis, the overworking culture is very unhealthy (see: Corey lab suicides, Erick M. Carreira 1996 letter).
3. I thought the commentary singling out research misconduct by Chinese researchers was misplaced. In note 4 he uses the percentage of papers authored by Chinese groups to prove his point. It is not surprising that a country with almost 20% of the world’s population and decent research infrastructure will also author around 20% of publications in certain journals. Although some nations might have a worse culture than others regarding publication pressure leading to fraud and misconduct, it is unfair to focus on China only. I have personally worked in EU-based institutions where similar incentives were offered (rewards such as tenure,monetary, .. specifically coupled to journal impact factor of group publications) and gamed.
The politicization of Science is proceeding at a pace that would make Mao Tse Tung smile…
Exactly, another example of how politicized topics are embedded in scientific practice today, scientific objectivity is really under attack: Lancet, New England Journal retract Covid-19 studies.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/04/lancet-retracts-major-covid-19-paper-that-raised-safety-concerns-about-malaria-drugs/
I think, the problem is in how people read the first sentence:
“In the last two decades many groups and/or individuals have been designated with “preferential status”.
Which groups is he talking about? Everyone just read that he is talking about women and minorities. But he didn’t say it. If you’d put straight, white, male here, you’d see that this is the standard american discourse about the “privileges” (white privilege, straight privilege, etc.). So, which groups does he originally mean? Neither. He simply aims to criticise this whole gender/race dimension altogether. On Figure 1 he actually lists workforce diversity as a positive factor. And of course diversity workshops wont fix any problems neither.
The way people misunderstood and overreacted is scary. No attempt to read what’s written whatsoever. Apparently, the existent political agenda infested academia to the core.
The idea that making efforts to reverse past decades of deliberate exclusion of women and minorities, is reverse discrimination, is clearly false. The prior paradigm greatly benefited certain populations of men, independently of ‘merit’. It’s true that the traditional white male-centric science population may actually have somewhat less opportunities in the future, but not because of ‘reverse discrimination’, rather, because this actual preferential, non-meritorious, hierarchical, pedestal is being removed and they simply don’t like it.
TRH7: Agree with you 100%. It is not “reverse discrimination”. It is reversing discrimination. And for those who disagree please propose a way to level the playing field and to ensure equal treatment instead of complaining. Because doing nothing and employing previous status quo does not lead to equal treatment.
I think the answer is to not ever discriminate under any circumstances, rather than reversing discrimination, which is truly reverse discrimination, which is wrong.
“I think the answer is to not ever discriminate under any circumstances”
Please offer some suggestions on how to accomplish that. Even one suggestion. Just hoping or waiting for that to magically happen won’t get it done.
Oh – and please explain how your suggestion will address the problem of implicit bias as well.
Please prove that “implicit bias” is a more valid theory than phlogiston.
Johann Amadeus Metesky: There is an extensive peer-reviewed literature on this subject. Here is but one example: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.short
Identical application materials for a laboratory position at US R1 institutions. The only difference being a gender identifying first name. The female candidate scored lower than the male candidate in all measures. I believe similar studies have been published including those involving race.
My prior post isn’t difficult to understand. Just saying something = something isn’t an argument. If you’re moving at 100mph in one direction and then put brakes on to slow down to 0, this isn’t the same as going 100mph in reverse, under any circumstances. If for decades, the traditional white-male centric group has been given a deliberate preference at the expense of all others, diminishing that preference a notch or two to allow others to compete does not = reverse discrimination. It’s simply trying to achieve neutral, one day. It’s natural though to protect the perch on the preferential, non-meritorious pedestal that CK below notes some don’t even recognize. I get it.
You do not correct discrimination with more (albeit reverse) discrimination. You are using an “analogy” that is not at all analogous to the situation at hand, and using it to support an extremely unethical, illiberal idea.
You are assuming the “privileged” group recognized their privileges. Some do, and some of them intend to do everything in their power (which they have all of) to protect their privileges. We see it everywhere in the world. At least in politics, we can in theory vote them out. Academia will be the last place to change, if ever, because the tenure system is in place to ensure these people stay in power and control.
“propose a way to level the playing field”
I guess you just talking about current Marxist “classes” of “race” and “sex oops! genre” isn’t it?
Does not include introverts and social awkward, unattractive people, people that did not found love, people without parents that died when they were still children, people that have had diseases that put them years without working… etc…
That’s your perspective. I think people should be assessed on multiple parameters with the most important being, are they qualified to do the job. Many are qualified, but the positions are few. Personally I have seen people with more interesting backgrounds beyond gender or race be hired in my unit. One was an excellent prospect, very qualified but we were also interested in his perspective dealing with a chronic debilitating disease. We hired him. He is not pretty. Taxpayer research dollars should include a variety of qualified people because that money comes from a variety of people too.
The author did not suggest to go back to the white male preferences, he even does not mention any white male. He just argues to bring the equality at the level of an individual from the level of the groups. We should care to avoid any discrimination of any given person based on his/her gender or sexual preferences etc. But at the moment of the decision to whom the job will go, we need not to take into account proportions of the genders or other groups in the university or institute. Where is there any request to return to male preferences?
I do not see anything wrong with the article. What was written by the author is correct. The new political agenda is hurting science, since people are not hired based on their expertise but to fulfil the criteria of diversity.
That’s an empirical claim. A different empirical claim is that, now, people are hired based not on their expertise but on their placement in the present network of connections AND the present network of connections actively fulfills (even if it is not necessarily designed to fulfill) the criterion of non-diversity.
Perhaps in short— the belief that these networks of connection will deliver what the admin and school want most…GRANT MONEY!
I agree with 100% of that. Its not so much what you know, its who you know. Famous people.
The opinion piece reads like an angry rant from an old white faculty. The equivalent tone-deaf “Get off my lawn” screed against those dang youngsters with their progressive ideas.
It has zero place in *any* scholarly journal, let alone one of the most influential journals in chemistry.
I fail to understand the logics of the SCS tweet here above. They claim that preferences to white men that were in place earlier deprived chemistry (and probably the science as whole) of many talents etc. However they condemn the author who says that exactly the same practice towards another groups (women and unnamed ‘minorities’) would result in similar deprivation of science of many talents. This appears controversial!
“Diversity” is a religion and should be recognized as such. The journal should simply admit that it requires its contributors to practice its religion. That would at least be honest.
Is the opposite view a religion also and how honest are its practitioners about your answer?
We should all read :
RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Diversity–Innovation Paradox in Science
Bas Hofstra, Vivek V. Kulkarni, Sebastian Munoz-Najar Galvez, Bryan He, Dan Jurafsky, and Daniel A. McFarland
PNAS April 28, 2020 117 (17) 9284-9291; first published April 14, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915378117
Add to Cart ($10)
Tom Hudlicky passed away on May 12, 2022. It’s possible that the treatment he received from the scientific community in response to his expressed opinions, mostly rejection, may have contributed to his early demise. In any event, I sorely miss him and his constructive ranting on a variety of topics that provoke critical thinking and enlightened discourse.