Having featured recently in these pages, the Scholarly Kitchen, organ of the Society for Scholarly Publishing appears again, and on the same theme of its disproportionate response to the measures taken by the Trump Government to disinfect American public life, especially those aspects funded by and under the control of the US Government, of the last vestiges of the DEI agenda. Now the authors of the ‘Declaration To Defend Research Against US Government Censorship’ have been given space in the Scholarly Kitchen to promote their declaration and to invite signatories. To date, 1,727 individuals and 29 organisations have signed.
In the 754-word article the word “censorship” appears seven times and some of the links refer to the “fascist” measures recently implemented by the new US administration. The main causes of the meltdown are proposals to ban certain words, to ban certain books and only to approve and fund research grant proposals that are approved by the Government. In fact, the measures are not quite as described in the Scholarly Kitchen article.
Words
Flagged as a list of “forbidden words“, the search terms are those that will be used by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to alert its officials to scientific articles about which they may have concerns. The website GIZMODO lists the 109 words the declaration’s authors claim are “forbidden”. Words and phrases such as ‘activism’, ‘biased’, ‘cultural differences’, ‘disability’, ‘equity’, ‘female’, ‘gender’, ‘hate speech’, ‘inclusive’, ‘LGBT’, ‘minority’, ‘prejudice’, ‘racial’, ‘social justice’, ‘trauma’, ‘underrepresented’, ‘victim’ and ‘women’ are all listed.
Admittedly, the list may seem somewhat over sensitive (as opposed to specific). GIZMODO also publish an algorithm that will, purportedly, be used by National Science Foundation officials to flag certain articles. The algorithm is described as the “decision tree being distributed to programme officers at NSF to comply with Donald Trump’s fascist purge of forbidden words”. The precise purpose of the list and the algorithm is not stated but, since the NSF Public Access Repository hosts articles from NSF funded research, the purpose may be to flag or even remove links from articles that concern the new Government.
The problem is that no official list has been published. The source of information to date appears to be pearl-clutching academics, librarians and activists who are not in favour of the Trump regime. No primary sources are linked in the GIZMODO article and the only outcome of the algorithm is that certain articles, ones that have been vetted after an alert due to containing a “forbidden” word, is that they will be flagged. No further action is suggested but, presumably, this may be with a view to removal from the repository.
If any of this is true, this is not, strictly speaking, censorship. It is merely a Government-funded organisation deciding which aspects of the research it funds it wishes to showcase. The articles will already be published in scientific peer-reviewed journals and there is no suggestion and, indeed, no mechanism whereby they could be retracted simply on the basis that some person or organisation disagrees with the content.
Books
Next, in a piece of reporting that treats the truth with a considerable amount of flexibility, the Scholarly Kitchen article links to a website, Pen America, which claims to stand “at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide”. It also “champions the freedom to write, recognising the power of the word to transform the world”. Presumably it is happiest when the world is being transformed to its own vision.
Saying that the Trump administration’s decision to uphold book bans is “not a hoax“, implying that the US Government is planning a re-enactment of Kristallnacht, they add economy with the truth to flexibility, conveniently omitting to point out that the 2023-2024 bans were imposed under the Biden administration.
Digging deeper, these book bans relate mainly to schools across the United States and to protecting minors from explicit sexualised content. These bans, which only remove the books from school library shelves and not from publication or circulation, presumably come at the behest of concerned parents and teachers. One assumes also that Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are also banned, for similar reasons.
Research
Finally, the Scholarly Kitchen article turns a spotlight on what it considers a restriction to academic freedom. The link this time is to the National Public Radio website, to an article explaining that the Trump administration aims to “restrict” CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) research.
The article claims “the administration is controlling what topics may be covered and which may not” but that is “largely being conveyed verbally, often in phone calls, rather than being relayed in writing or emails”. So, there is no actual record of what is being said by whom or to whom. It is also claimed that authors are being asked to withdraw papers in review from journals or to withdraw from authorship lists if they are CDC employees and the articles do not align with the current ideology. This latter claim, if true, is more serious but, like the former claim, requires to be verified.
However, in terms of “controlling what topics may be covered” in research funded by the Government, it is ever thus. Governments have a perfect right to prioritise their research spending, to direct it towards certain streams and to restrict others. It is not uncommon in the UK. Moreover, if there are stipulations around research grant applications such as inclusion and diversity, for example, regarding the composition of research teams then, likewise, a Government has the right to alter that stipulation if it considers it to be counterproductive.
The meltdown in academic research and academic publishing circles appears to have little foundation other than in upsetting those with a vested interest in the DEI agenda.
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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