Facing a storm of criticism on social media, a chemistry journal in Germany has suspended two editors who handled a controversial essay that it said “highlights the bias displayed in our field and many others” to women and minority researchers.
And the 16 members of the journal’s international advisory board — which includes Nobel Laureates — resigned while denouncing the essay.
The article, “Organic synthesis-where now?’ Is thirty years old. A reflection on the current state of affairs,” by Tomas Hudlicky, of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, had appeared in Angewandte Chemie, the flagship publication of the German Chemical Society. Hudlicky’s argument included several statements that suggested a hostility to efforts on university campuses to promote diversity.
The journal initially removed the essay without a notice, which isn’t best practice for retractions. It has since issued this statement from Neville Compton, the editor-in-chief:
An opinion essay “A Reflection on the Current State of Affairs,” a response to “Organic synthesis—Where Now?,” originally published 30 years ago in Angewandte Chemie, recently appeared as an Accepted Article. The opinions expressed in this essay do not reflect our values of fairness, trustworthiness and social awareness. It is not only our responsibility to spread trusted knowledge, but to also stand against discrimination, injustices and inequity. While diversity of opinion and thoughts can spur change and debate, this essay had no place in our journal.
In response to this incident, we will conduct an internal investigation and will share the actions we are implementing within the next week to ensure this will not happen again. We are deeply sorry and know we have failed the community that puts their trust in us.
The foundation of our work is based on the belief that science can and does change the world.
We are committed to making a change. We can and will do better.
The journal followed that with disciplinary actions against staff involved in the publication of the article. According to a statement released Monday apologizing for the piece:
First and foremost, we want to acknowledge the pain and anger that was caused as the result of the Accepted Article by Tomas Hudlicky in our Journal. This was a clear mistake and we deeply apologize. At best, it was poor judgment and at worst, it highlights the bias displayed in our field and many others. The opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author and they violate the values and codes of conduct of the journal, the members of staff, the Editorial Board, and the German Chemical Society (GDCh), the owner society of Angewandte Chemie.
As a first immediate response, the article was removed from the Wiley Online Library. Furthermore, two editors have been suspended from their positions. The two international referees who reviewed the Essay will no longer be used by the journal for peer review. A full investigation of the case has been initiated. As we continue down the path to strengthen diversity and earn back the trust of our community, we will implement specific programs and procedures at all levels of Angewandte Chemie in response to the results and recommendations of the investigation.
The statement doesn’t name the two editors, and it’s not clear if their suspensions are temporary or permanent. We asked Annette G. Beck-Sickinger, head of the journal’s editorial board and a co-signatory, along with Peter R. Schreiner, president of the German Chemical Society, of the letter for details but have yet to hear back.
Here is the statement from 16 members of the international advisory board:
Meanwhile, Hudlicky’s institution has condemned the essay, too. On Sunday, Gregory Finn, the provost of Brock, released an open letter:
The paper includes highly objectionable statements that contrast the promotion of equity and diversity with the promotion of academic merit. These statements are hurtful and alienating to members of diverse communities and historically marginalized groups who have, too often, seen their qualifications and abilities called into question.
The article moreover contains descriptions of the graduate supervisor-graduate student relationship that connote disrespect and subservience. These statements could be alarming to students and others who have the reasonable expectation of respectful and supportive mentorship.
The statements contained in the paper are not representative of the Brock community. They are utterly at odds with the values of Brock’s deeply committed research mentors, and all those working hard to build an inclusive and diverse community. They do not reflect the principles of inclusivity, diversity and equity included in the University’s mission, vision and values as approved by our Senate and Board of Trustees.
We asked Hudlicky what he thought about the journal’s actions. He replied:
That is frightening! We are sliding back to Calvinism and burning at stakes. This is absurd!
I expressed my opinions and my words were totally taken out of context. Yet I get a lot of emails in support. … The witch hunt is on.
Updated 1800 UTC, 6/8/20, with news of the mass resignations from the international advisory board.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Seriously , retracting that article is the worst move Angew. did. Not only the article is positively politically not correct (and for this reason it must be published) but it says many things which are common everyday practice. It wakes up people and it says the truth. What is the problem with that? I think most people in the chemical community, especially at high level, has too much conceit nowadays to recognize it is true that diversity programs are discriminatory towards merit, that students should start to obey to whom knows better than them (provided the master is intelligent), that university should stop to act as companies and restart being education centres, that people should start to publish seriously with all the correct characterizations.
It absolutely does not matter what the paper said. Yes, this is made all the worse by the fact that the text does not say anything that is not correct, but this is not even relevant.
If something is published, then it is a permanent part of the scientific record, the only thing that can be done after that is to retract it, which means that the text stays up and a retraction note is attached to it.
To just “disappear” a published item is gross violation of all the long-standing rules of scholarly publishing, and it is in fact the biggest scandal here.
Of course, we all know why they could not do it the way it is supposed to be done — if they had retracted the paper, then the text of it is still visible, everyone can see it makes perfectly reasonable and accurate observations, which reveals the retraction for what it is, politically and ideologically motivated censorship and blatant violation of normal scholarly practices. So it has to be done by removing it from the record.
It is not the first time this has happened, there was another case of a disappeared paper a couple years ago in a math journal. That one wasn’t even an editorial/opinion pieces, it was an actual research paper.
This is well on its way to becoming a normalized practice now.
The whole editorial board should resign, not for publishing the paper, but for allowing it to be disappeared like that.
This whole argument is ridiculous.
It is based on the idea of a “Sacred Scientific Record” that, god forbid, must not be altered, lest we lose our credibility!
Here’s some context for you: There’s no new data presented in that article, it’s literally just the researcher’s opinion on the future of the field. That’s it. It has as much importance to scientific progress, as your comment or my comment. Which is to say, absolutely none.
Half of the comments here are by you, because you seem to believe that THud is being silenced somehow. He is free to speak his mind, just as people are free to respond to it. All that’s changed is that instead of being hosted on Angewandte’s website, it’s on some random person’s Google Drive link. The point is, there are no “limited seats” in Chemistry and there is no discrimination against white males. I’m not linking references because THud didn’t do it and you seem to believe wholeheartedly in his thoughts, so I figured I don’t need them.
The heart of this is that all people want is just to feel accepted in the field they love. And yet they face challenge after challenge. Whether it’s someone’s side comment on what they look like or a blatant racist/sexist stereotype being thrown in their face or being told they’re not getting that raise or position because of racial/sexist bias. I don’t understand why it’s hard for people to connect to that.
All I have to say to you is, please try to have some empathy. These are not just immaterial things, they are real human beings who want their chance to do some great research. And the words you post here can hurt people who just want a shot to at their dream.
Fully agree. It was clearly marked as an opinion and we may share some views or dislike them but making things disappear remind me of CC..CENSORED.
The article is so dangerous it must be burned in effigy! How dare they let us, the readers, see words that are so dangerous and harmful. Can you imagine, sharing dissenting opinions?! How this will poison our group think. Inexcusable!
I totally agree with you! what are they afraid of? I was a member of a Study section @ NIH. I was victim of racism. But nobody cares! #BrownLivesMatter
You Really don’t understand science if you see a journal revising itself as a violation of free speech.
They found the information to be lacking, Idk if you have actually read the article that was pulled, but it was self-plagiarism of outdated ideas that had nothing to do with chemistry.
Unless you consider students having to submit to every request from their mentors as “new information” and a “valid viewpoint,” but this had nothing to do with furthering chemistry. As well as the ideas of technology were very outdated and didn’t at all consider actual machines we have today.
This isn’t censoring a chemist, this is a journal realizing they published an opinion piece. And those responsible for it are facing consequence.
Science isn’t about opinion pieces like this; and this paper didn’t have anything to do with chemistry as a field; nor was the information factual.
Instead of being angry at the paper being pulled, be angry that it was allowed to go through in the first place.
When one side of a scientific debate is allowed to silence the other side, this is an impediment to scientific progress because it prevents bad theories being replaced by better theories.
This is pure and unadulterated Lysenkoism on smaller scale – remember, where scientists who agreed with Mendelian genetics were imprisoned or executed.
I’ll give it 20 years.
How are there two sides?
The two sides are:
(1) “You don’t belong here, I do, I have more merit and I just so happen to be a white guy, you are taking my opportunities at My Science.”
(2) “Please don’t say that I don’t belong here, I worked hard, I have the same merit you do. All I’m asking is for practices to be implemented that address unconscious racial/sexist bias so I can work freely at My Science”
There’s no scientific theories being argued here, and people are in this thread pretending like it’s Liberals vs. Conservatives.
It is deeply revealing that you are angry at the retraction of an article that made sweeping generalizations about the intelligence of a majority of the earth’s population with no citations whatsoever, because you believe it “wakes up people and it says the truth”. It says nothing about the science of the matter, but it says everything about you.
The paper made no such “sweeping generalizations about the intelligence of a majority of the earth’s population”
Fortunately, nothing truly disappears on the internet, and the text can still be found.
Two things are “controversial” in it:
1. It says that it is wrong to hire people based on their skin color and their possession of ovaries/testes, because this corrupts and compromises science. Which happens to be 100% correct. This is what all the outrage is about.
2. It criticizes Chinese science for the fraudulent practices that are widespread there. Which is also 100% correct — a ton of great work is coming out of China, but in their push to catch up with and surpass the West, some very misguided incentives have been put in place, and this indeed leads to corruption of the scientific process. Everyone who has had to review a significant number of papers from China has directly noticed that. This one there is not that much public outrage about but could well have played a major role in the decision to disappear the article.
But there is nothing in it about “the intelligence of a majority of the earth’s population”.
If it was really “100% correct” the author would have been able to provide a citation for it. Yet he provided nothing to back up his crass generalization.
So you think it is CORRECT to hire people based on their color or gender? Or how should I understand your reply?
Yes — it’s what’s best for the underlying science, which I assume is what we really want here, not simply jobs for white dudes. See my reply in another thread below.
Is it some other similar paper work to cite ?
He probably was a fisrt who initiated this discussions.
Science is a field for free mind and open dispute and we should not forget about it. Everyone is free to express their thoughts, otherwise science will turn into politics (or it already did ?)
It wasn’t a scientific paper. It’s not part of the scientific record. It had no data, no analysis.
It wasn’t even scholarship. It didn’t look at the actual existing published research on diversity or anything.
It was a anti-intellectual opinion.
So according to you we should shut down most humanities journals, (which, in case you need that explicitly pointed out, would include all of the gender/race/etc. “studies” ones), because there is certainly no data to be found there, it is all opinion sharing and thus not “scholarship”?
Excellent point!
Then, dont publish it in angewandte chemie. Publish it elsewhere.
Science influences society and society influences science. Therefore it is the responsibility of scientists to deliver their opinions within the context of society. This was an essay not a discussion of experimental findings. Therefore the total lack of understanding of the current norms of our society shows how out of touch Dr. Hudlicky is with reality. I would argue that because of the influence of professors, once they show a lack of awareness like Dr. Hudlicky, it is perhaps time to retire as it is a failure to adapt to the times.
Or perhaps it is time to revoke whatever degrees you might be in possession of?
Because it appears that you are in outright denial of the foundational premise on which science is based — that there is an objective external to us reality that is equally knowable by all independent observers.
Accepting that premise means also adopting the view that science cannot and should not be forced to change in any way by changes in society. “Changes in society” have no influence on the laws of nature.
Perhaps you should take your head out of your behind and read a book on the history and philosophy of science.
If I find based on data that someone is about to die because of some disease…I wouldn’t stay…”you gonna die soon son”. Rather it is discussed within a professional context. If you think science is not influenced by society then perhaps we should get rid of ethics and do whatever we want?
Dear JF, why would you or should you agree with the society? Because is politically “correct”? No, that is not right that´s the main reason why people such as prof. Hudlicky and specifically then his family experienced during the totality in Czech R.
That´s why they emigrated because they thought that in West was freedom of speech. Someone in the comments also did mention citations which cannot be found due to fact that majority of researchers are often afraid talk about diversity because of backlash which will almost definitely face from other academics as well as general public. Everyone should be heard and be able to freely express their opinion if that isn´t allowed then we´re going backwards! Democracy is about free speech!
It is as many have again ignored the fact that an attack on the freedom of individuals threatens the freedom of all – VÁCLAV HAVEL.
So because the journal published opinions that are not universally accepted, the journal punishes people who have worked for the journal for free, with no salary. Certainly the case with the reviewers, possibly with the editors.
Making the article just disappear is bad practice. Suspending editors is ridiculous. Banning reviewers must be a joke.
What an embarrassment this whole debacle is. And not for the reasons the representatives of the journal seem to think.
Most people are so tired of hearing of hearing the ancient argument that protecting the status quo = protecting ‘merit’ based hiring. The status quo has always involved unmerited advantage to certain white males and those within their network, with disadvantage and exclusion to most others. Diversity initiatives are simply one way to break this hegemony and move towards actual neutral, merit based inclusion, one day. No one is taking garbage men and forcing them into science positions if you are worried about who is coming in. There are increasing numbers of highly qualified women and minorities who now have more opportunities to COMPETE, and the only ones complaining are those who who are afraid of losing the unmerited pedestal they used to enjoy.
I don’t think your comment is accurate, TRH7.
Firstly, ‘Most people’ is just conjecture.
Second, there is a genuine effect, not so much on those already on pedestals, but on early career researchers who do not happen to be in minorities. Let’s say a hypothetical university department wishes to ‘correct’ the gender balance from 1:4 to 1:1. Obviously the only way to fix this is to preferentially hire the underrepresented gender. And equally obviously hopeful applicants in the other gender (where I am simplifying things to two genders just for the sake of a clear argument) will have decreased chances competing for a position in an already near- impossible market.
Some of those who are now on pedestals set up the problem. Those who had nothing to do with it but happen to be in the same majority pay part of the price. And, in my experience, tend to be silenced if they ask questions about university policies in situations like this.
I am not claiming right or wrong either way. But some facts are inescapable.
Sounds like a fair trade-off for decades of oppression.
I love this logic! “You just don’t like the boot being on the other foot!” Such enlightenment in the playground. It surrounds me in my work as the whole discipline dissolves before my eyes.
If you are facing “decreased chances competing for a position in an already near- impossible market,” the correct answer is to hire people who can do more for science and make the market less impossible. In the current situation, this means hiring more women and people from diverse backgrounds.
If science output has decreased to the point where it is having an impact on funding, then it’s not improper to wonder whether historic gender and ethnic imbalance has caused a problem — and studies show that this is indeed the case.
If the author of the retracted article had paid attention in the anti-bias classes that he says he snoozed through, he might have understood this. Even if he disagreed with the studies he might have at least felt compelled to present evidence for his crass argument. As it is, his article simply presented his bare, unreferenced assertions as if they were fact, something completely unfit for a scientific journal.
So am I getting this right:
Anon thinks it would be fair to intentionally put some early career researchers at a great disadvantage, trading off for tribulations other groups have faced in the past?
And JLS thinks that by doing the above, we would fix science, hence making the job market better for everyone?
JLS, could you point to studies that show a causal effect of historic gender and ethnic imbalance causing decreased scientific output, possibly even to the point that it has had an impact on funding?
Tron elec-Your wasting your time being rational with the Post Modern Virtual Signalling Thought Police in here.
Their entire meme is “we can be biased against group X, because there was bias against group Y years ago”..thats their best shot..wow..
Next they will try and find you for a jolly bit of doxing..”cause history”..
Tron, it’s so nice of you to be requesting studies at this late point in the thread. Where were you upthread when someone said that the editorial was simply “100% correct” and no references were needed?
I am not a hard scientist, but I have read and spoken with hard scientists like Lee Smolin who describe similar problems to my own field, where lack of diversity has damaged the quality of education and the underlying work. Here’s one recent study that cites several dozen more, including studies on the objective value of having female-authored readings in my field.
Smith, Amy Erica, et al. “Gender, Race, Age, and National Origin Predict Whether Faculty Assign Female-Authored Readings in Graduate Syllabi.” PS: Political Science & Politics 53.1 (2020): 100-106.
What is most telling in this whole “debate” (should one wish to call it that), is that all of the support for the author that I see here is coming from people who refuse to attach their names to their opinion.
I disagree wholeheartedly with the content of the article in question, but at least Hudlicky was willing to have his name attached to it.
It is quite telling indeed. Just nod your head and agree with the mob or you will face character assassination. Long gone are the times of rational debate!
I suspect everyone with the possible exception of yourself on this thread is writing under a pseudonym, regardless of their stance on the topic in question.
Perfectly understandable in my opinion, as well as perfectly acceptable on this kind of forum.
If you have been following twitter, some have defended Hudlicky under their real name.
Well, let’s see, what do we have here?
We have a distinguished senior scientist publishing an opinion piece in a top chemistry journal.
Then it gets immediately not just just retracted, but disappeared, and the editorial board (which included multiple Nobel laureates) resigns because it has allowed the paper to be published (not because they allowed it to be disappeared, contrary to all centuries-old established scholarly publishing standards!).
Now how does the process of scrubbing a published item from the internet withing 24 hours work exactly? Presumably some angry e-mails were sent/phone calls were made, and whoever sent those e-mails telling the journal to do that clearly must have been quite “persuasive”.
And so it must have looked to the editorial board. Which, again, contained multiple Nobel Prize winners, i.e. not exactly people with no power and influence themselves who could never dream of standing up for certain principles if they truly held them.
Then you see the Twitter mob calling for firing the researcher who authored the piece, and even for abolishing tenure altogether so that whoever decided to say something perceived as politically incorrect in the future can be punished swiftly and without too much hassle.
Yeah, in that situation one would definitely want to post with his/her real name…
The people who, in part, support Hudlicky are being true to what they think is reality, which is 1.) that discrimination involved in promotion in academia is at times questionable (I personally question whether there is discrimination against women in chemistry, I don’t see this at all), and 2.) reverse discrimination to support hiring quotas, which is true bonified discrimination against the majority, is wrong. However, these are politically incorrect views and expressing them could get you fired or defunded. A lot of times the mob is wrong, and the only way you can say that without becoming homeless is anonymously.
Tron Elec, most people aren’t white males and most of them are wary of that oft-used argument for the biased status quo, so are many white males. Hence the statement is likely more than mere ‘conjecture’.
Your example is your perception, not reality. The reality was that in a ‘near impossible’ market dominated by certain men, a quantifiable advantage was given to up and coming men who looked like them and were in their networks while a there was a clear exclusion of qualified women and minorities. Is this fair? Folks like you believe that taking away that hegemony means discriminating against white males – really? What’s your solution to the problem?
Decreasing the previous hiring bias is not reverse discrimination to anyone rational. Same as decreasing speed in one direction is not traveling the opposite. Few if any gender/race balanced science departments actually exist.
More and diverse viewpoints competing in science is good when there are otherwise limited positions. Ideally even some white men who were not part of the prior hegemonic networks and would not have been considered, may be chosen by the more diverse deciders who see their actual merit, not their unmerited pedestal.
TRH7,
There are white males who support the most extreme diversity efforts (some have commented on this thread).
Similarly, there are people of other genders and colors who feel uncomfortable with the current climate. I know some such people, and they do not feel any more comfortable stating their opinions publicly than do white men.
There is no way for you or I to know what most people think.
Everyone deserves equal opportunities, and that’s something to strive towards. I think many of us share that sentiment, but perhaps we don’t quite agree on what is an effective and ethical way to get there.
Yes, we can’t know the true thoughts of everyone. Agreed.
And yes, when it comes to taxpayer provided funds, taken from all the diverse people in our country, all I am calling for is measures to ensure equal opportunities to compete fairly, regardless of race, gender, politics etc. To do that, we have to root out any prior unfair preferences and in this early stage, the pendulum may swing back and forth between too little and too much, but as long as we continue to discuss the best approach and adjust, we will get there and science will be better for it. This debate is quite important.
Well said! Personally I don’t oppose the idea of meritocracy at all. However, everyone needs to be aware that the “good old times” when majority of the university professors “happened” to be white males isn’t even a close resemble of meritocracy. It is a result of discrimination, inequity, and uninclusiveness. The women and minority scientists deserve more chances. And yes, if the chances have to come from somewhere, it will come from white males, who still enjoy the privilege in our far-from-perfect academic system.
Quite the opposite. Those white males were indeed the most qualified to be in those positions.
Now why they were the most qualified is a different question (it is because educational opportunities were indeed denied to non-white people and to women). But that does not mean that anyone but those white males could have been in those positions if science was to move forward at that time.
In that sense it was indeed a meritocracy.
In order to fix that we need to provide equal educational opportunities to everyone starting from the moment people are born. Which in turn means fighting for economic equality. Which means not distracting ourselves with nonsense about gender and race. If all big corporations are behind a given cause (which is the case with identity politics), that should be an obvious sign to everyone with two functioning neurons to rub together (and presumably those working in science are strongly enriched for such individuals) that someone is being played here. Yet people seem completely incapable of seeing through it.
It would be interesting to read the Reviewer correspondence for this article. Perhaps Angewandte Chemie or Tomas Hudlicky are willing to share this? It’s not clear to me what was in the original article, but reading the article and understanding the review process might be useful for everyone (Reviewers’ names withheld of course).
Hudlicky submitted an editorial on a subject in which he has no scientific expertise, to a journal in a completely different field, which was subsequently published, and which was recognised and decried as nonsense by experts in the topic.
Every step of that process except the last one is contrary to good academic practice.
If an arts professor published an article in a sociology journal that described total organic synthesis as a harmful process of combining minerals to produce poisons, I somehow don’t think that the commenters on this article would be rushing to defend its fundamental importance to the academic record.
He is a fairly distinguish chemist, looks to me like he has plenty of expertise in the field of chemistry
Oh, I get it, you mean the field of grieving about imaginary injustices? Well, the problem with that argument is that there is no such field, and even if there was, it is not like it requires decades of dedicated study to master. Thus nobody has authority over it.
Also, it appears that you in particular have absolutely no understanding of what “good academic practice” is, because if you did, you would have noticed that a published item just got disappeared, which is outright criminal with proper academic practice. You just don’t do that.
You retract a published item by attaching a retraction note to it, but once it is up, it can never ever be just airbrushed out of the record like that.
BTW, this is at least the second time something like that has happened, so we are well on our way to making this a normalized practice. Do you realize what that means for the future? Apparently not…
GM, you can certainly make an argument that a properly accepted article should remain up and a journal can write a retraction. I mostly agree with this, if the process was otherwise sound, why get rid of it?
Saying ‘field of grieving about imaginary injustices’ sounds childish, as if discrimination based on gender/race is a mere fairy tale. Things may be improving but certainly not because of viewpoints like yours.
In academia for the last at least 20 years (greatly intensifying in the 2010s) discrimination by gender and race is most definitely not a fairy tale, it is very real.
If you are white and male, you are openly and quite viciously discriminated against, denied opportunities, smeared as the embodiment of evil all the time, etc.
But it being a real thing that does not make knowledge of the relevant issues some sort of esoteric “field” that requires decades of dedicated study to master and be an “authority” in.
You don’t need to have formally studied the subject for decades to know all that one needs to know about boiling eggs, for example. Particle physics, on the other hand, is a different matter
This vicious discrimination is your perception and quite an overreaction in my opinion. You say this as if white men are somehow underrepresented in science (no one believes this). I’m certain that your passion against discrimination did not extend to women or minorities when they were largely excluded from the club. Be honest, you don’t actually care about discrimination, fairness, equal opportunity competition etc in any sense. You care about protecting your prospects and people like you. This is basic human behavior but not the best of human behavior.
As for studying bias, discrimination etc. It’s quite reasonable to study many aspects of the complexity of human behaviors and the consequences on society. Some of these topics have much more impact on the quality of society and every day life than particle physics ever will. Especially when you are using tax payer dollars from different kinds of people who would like to see a variety of studies and progress in different areas with different viewpoints and a variety of people doing the work.
GM, there is an enormous body of research out there on the issues described in that piece, which text is ignorant of and/or contradictory to. You are welcome to simply pretend it doesn’t exist because the conclusions it reaches have upset you – goodness knows you’ll in good company with the creationists and the homeopaths – but you can’t act like you’re standing up for academic rigour when you do so.
This is absolutely atrocious. How is it possible that we allow researchers to have viewpoints that deviate from status quo? This must end!
He didn’t kowtow to the new religion. Obviously, he must be unpersoned.
As an employee of the publisher of Angewandte Chemie, I have been quite disturbed by the fallout from this article. We were told by senior management that the piece had been removed because of its “intolerable ideologies and inflammatory language against women and people of color”, so I was expecting to find truly shocking and hateful content. However, having read an archived version, all I can see is a temperate rehearsal of a mainstream conservative position that affirmative-action hiring policies undermine true equality of opportunity (if only as an unintended consequence). It’s a depressing example of the hyperbole that polarizes sides in today’s culture wars: a moderately expressed, centre-right viewpoint has been calumniated as a racist/sexist tirade, in order to justify its erasure.
As Hudlicky’s unrepentant response indicates, hearts and minds are can never be changed by silencing them. Removing the piece has only confirmed him and the like-minded in their ‘old white male’ martyrdom – that they are the victims of a liberal academic orthodoxy which brooks no dissent.
I have heard for four decades that preferential treatment of women and minorities would unfairly hurt white males. If this were true, the ranks of professionals and academics under ~60 would be dominated by women, and minorities would be greatly over-represented as compared to the general population.
That does not seem to be the case!! The most obvious reason is that the prejudice and discriminatory behavior that permeated organizational cultures did not immediately disappear once laws changed.
I don’t expect my arguments to influence the opinions of any of the previous posters.
This is a very nice politically correct statement from a faculty member which will appeal to administrators and will your not at all hurt your advancement in the system. In academia, the more PC you are, the more popular you are and the more money you will make.
It’s almost like being compassionate for people who just want to feel accepted in a field they love pays off, huh? Weird.
Translation: moral corruption of showing “compassion” for social/political profit is ok in science.
What is missing is compassion for science. Science appears the least of the worries by some here. How some new technique, some new idea that goes against the dominant idea and powers can be approved when the scientific field is dominated by “feel good popularist” contest as tool to get social/political power.
I wonder how the job market today compares with that 40 years ago? Could it be that a more competitive job market exacerbates the problem? It seem plausible to me that preferential treatment of women/minorities in a competitive job market would hurt most the white male who lacks resources/connections. It is not self evident that all white men have an advantage over the others.
Regarding prejudices, should the youth of today pay for the discriminatory practices of decades earlier, and do we choose those who pay on the basis of factors they cannot control such as race or gender? This is dangerous territory.
It is reckless and dangerous to continue to attribute underrepresentation today to racism/sexism. This only divides our society. What about factors other than bigotry that contribute to underrepresentation, such as individual interest. It is well-accepted that women prefer people, whereas men prefer things. But this of course doesn’t fit the narrative.
This video summarizes what happened to Hudlicky: https://streamable.com/l34kb8
And people wonder why more academics don’t speak out against EDI policies.
An organization to which I belong, the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, has responded to the open letter Dr Hudlicky’s provost circulated. It can be found here: https://www.safs.ca/issuescases/case.php?case=brock-chemistry
On June 09, Angewandte Chemie announced “the appointment of an interim Editor-in-Chief Committee, effective immediately”:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213773
This is a scary development. An opinion piece by an established professor on his own area of expertise ,without any inflammatory language, is removed from a flagship journal due to politics. Furthermore anybody that touched the piece walks away with a heavily damaged career perspective. I work in a closely related field and am afraid of voicing my opinion on this under my own name as my career perspectives will be greatly damaged.
I have now read this paper. I can see which statements would have aggravated some. However, most comments are reasonable even if not articulated perfectly. I advise reading again and asking yourself – what if he is right?
What if he is wrong? Well blood has been spelt and shrieks have been heard.
That’s fine. Put his article back online. Counter opinions can be published. Discuss please; no cancel culture in science.
Finally: can someone please post links to papers that discuss the relative track record of new faculty as a function of race, gender, etc? Given the passionate debate, there must be some motivated to generate a quantitative analysis?
If published data show that Tomas Hudlicky’s theories were at least reasonable then there should be broad demand that his paper be live on Angewandte Chemie again soon.
Here is one such study that was posted in another thread:
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9284
From the abstract: ” Our analyses show that underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However, their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: For example, novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups”.
And the methods?
This is largely meaningless though.
Presumably those people have been hired before reverse discrimination had been put in place, i.e. they were in fact selected on merit.
Thus the results have nothing of relevance to say about what a world in which reverse discrimination is rampant and people are not selected on merit will look like.
GM, given some of your comments on this thread, I am not surprised that you find this study ‘largely meaningless’. I vehemently disagree with your position on the existence of reverse discrimination (in the USA), though I do happen to agree with your argument that the paper in question should have perhaps been retracted rather than to have it made simply disappeared.
For a bit of an update: https://www.bufa.ca/bufa-executive-statement-on-academic-freedom/?fbclid=IwAR3krjqMdj51lk7IewYGvzaVYYP-S-6R-aPBqU2zEziPygGfiVl4eeE_98A
White males? You see, this is the problem with the western culture. We think the world revolves around us. Around the white males and their privilege positions. How come nobody comments on how women are actually discriminated in Asia, Africa and South American work culture? If western culture was indeed focused on eradicating sexism, then it should do something about that.
Also the minorities part, I can understand: in Europe, if you are from Asian ancestry, you are considered a minority. So that means that if you belong to the group that composes a third of global population (India and China) you will be given the “minority quota” advantage, even though you come from a country that has double the population of the entire European continent.
I really understand the outrage. But you can’t simply put all gender and minority problems in one big group, when it differs so much from country to country.
Retraction Watch – this time, you got it wrong. I am quoting from the paper (can be accessed on the internet):
” It follows that, in a social equilibrium, preferential treatment of one group leads to disadvantages for 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.”
I quote again: “Each candidate should have an equal opportunity to secure a position, regardless
of personal identification/categorization”.
If one disagrees with that, they got to be an extremely unpleasant racist, sexist, bigot and a xenophobe. The entire article is written in a direct way without mincing words. Favoring groups of people for their identity has been called out in unequivocal terms. The article is what science should be all about. You don’t have to agree with everything in there, neither do I. I wish it was more about organic chemistry or more about affirmative action – it’s not well focused on anything. But you must have serious issues with humanity if you disagree with with the crux of the article.
Prof. Hudlicky simply said the truth. Nothing can be more offensive than that. Now he must be hanged to satisfy the ire of the mob.
Who would have thought that in the 21st century, the most intolerant and unreasonable people would be… the academics! Unbelievable.
Professor Hudlicky’s article’s main point was completely missed by many and certainly by Angewandte. The main point with regards to diversity was that it is good as long as seeking it does not destroy the potential of an institution (academic, government or private) of becoming strong by hiring the best candidate out of a pool of candidates! It is amazing to see how all these groups pushing for diversity in the workforce at all costs, DO NOT explicitly tell you to use the whole “minority, underrepresented” meter as a guiding rule when you’re choosing who to offer a position at your institution, I wonder why?! It is incredible that Prof. Hudlicky has been ridiculed and attacked for saying this, and I am sure he is not the only one out there who thinks this way, is just that other professors keep their lips shut because this can happen! Once hailed as a great scientist, great mentor* (just like Nicolaou, Corey, etc…) and a great professor, it is a shame to see how many colleagues have come out to throw stones at him only to side with the mob that nowadays rules our lives, you know the one that goes all out to attack you if you do not share the same point of view. It is this line of thinking that is backwards! letting the paper be published and having allowed for other scientists to weigh in on the subject with subsequent responses would have been an amazing sight to see. Right now, I believe only letters against that article would have come through, because ones supporting it would have experienced the same backlash that Hudlicky did.
I am a minority and I can not tell you how many times it bothers me that people think that I have accomplished all that I have done because I am a minority and that being one automatically open doors for me (in the form of scholarships, attending a top notch graduate program, etc…). They never ask me how many hours I spent working my tail off and sleepless nights studying to get where I am at today, so yes, when I see minorities like me trying to get a “pass” by using their “minority card”, I feel sorry for them and more sorry for whoever is hiring them. This country is great, full of opportunities (never available in most countries outside of it) and with the freedom of speech, which many believers in diversity seem to forget when the other side replies in non-agreeable fashion to their ideas.