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Need for a petition or open letter?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 4–FURTHER DISCUSSION INVITED; A LETTER IS BEING PREPARED ALONG THE LINES SUGGESTED BY PROF MECKLED-GARCIA IN THE COMMENTS

UPDATE:  NOW OPEN FOR DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS

I've heard in the last day from two readers (both women as it happens, one an untenured faculty member, one a student) taking issue with my expressed skepticism yesterday about whether a petition or open letter was called for.  Here's what the student wrote:

I would ask that you please keep my comments entirely anonymous since I am not in a position to speak publicly right now about the matter at hand. I just graduated from a well regarded philosophy MA program and will be applying to philosophy Ph.D programs soon and I have been absolutely sick about this whole matter with Rebecca Tuvel. I went into philosophy because I felt that it was important to be able to ask hard questions and give difficult answers in reference to important topics without worrying about risking the offense of the politically correct mob. I was wondering if someone could start an online petition asking for the resignation of everyone associated with Hypatia's editorial board. This is utterly beyond the pale and I am livid about it. I understand that many people are sick of these online petitions, but I feel that we owe it to Rebecca Tuvel and other up and coming young feminist philosophers like me who are concerned by this sort of thing to create a record of support at least as visible as the damaging record attacking this scholar's credibility that is now part of posterity. I feel I am in too vulnerable of a position myself to start the petition, but I will sign it openly if someone else starts it.

If someone wants to draft something and send it to me, I'll be glad to offer feedback and then publicize it upon release.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Mazviita Chirimuuta (Pittsburgh) writes:

Brian, I'd like to make the case that the last thing the profession needs at this point is another petition or letter. As we all know, these are politically challenging times and many of us will have recently joined marches, called senators, signed petitioned, and felt unable to make powerful people accountable for manifestly harmful deeds. The current administration cozies up to white supremacists and laughs at the idea of trans rights. Do those people care about online petitions? Of course not. What concerns me is that this frustrated desire for action and accountability is being channeled against individuals and groups in our own profession who *can* be held accountable, and indeed harmed by such actions. It's too tempting to unconsciously bracket well-intentioned colleagues whose views and methods trouble us with these remote and unaccountable adversaries, and direct our anger on them. That's cathartic, I imagine. I put this out there as a pure speculation — so readers, please don't take it as a dig or attack on my part — but I think this helps explain the intensity of the response that the Tuvel publication elicited. Which gets me to why the last thing we need is another online petition or open letter. If you feel that your liberal and scholarly values are threatened by the editors of Hypatia, and feel the urgency to do something, please pause a minute to consider who your real enemies are. (Maybe… politicians who are ready to torch the humanities, free speech, and the very idea of facts.) Is your desire for action really best directed against some fellow philosophers? Isn't there a way to charitably interpret their actions as at least aiming at outcomes which you yourself would take to be positive — i.e. greater inclusivity in our profession, and social justice more widely? Whether or not you can find anything good to say about the "other side", please consider whether it is in our collective interest to spend time and energy on attacking each other.

I am not sure anyone is channeling anger about Trump towards Hypatia; I think academics are genuinely angry about the misconduct by the Hypatia editors.  But Prof. Chirimuuta raises fair questions, and I invite discussion of them as well.  Another philosopher, in the UK, writes with a related question:

Do you think that concerned philosophers (individually) should be raising with Wiley and/or with their librarians the question of whether the journal Hypatia remains credible under its current board? It certainly has had some great content in the past but will anyone want to publish in it, or cite its recent content, now that we know that (a) peer review is not tegarded as decisive and may be second-guessed on political grounds and (b) the official retraction policy is a sham?

I would prefer signed comments, but pseudonymous or anonymous ones will be permitted here, as long as they are relevant, substantive and include a valid e-mail address (which will not appear).

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43 responses to “Need for a petition or open letter?”

  1. Molly Gardner

    Whether or not there is a new open letter, I think we need some way (a poll?) of showing journalists how many philosophers agree with the way Tuvel was censured and how many do not. Otherwise, journalists might be tempted to conclude (and to convey in their articles) that the view expressed in the original open letter is representative of what philosophers think, in general. After all, there were hundreds of signatures on the original open letter. What should a journalist balance that number against? 500 signatories vs. 2 or 3 bloggers? Which view is the majority view?

    Reply
  2. Brian Leiter

    I could set up a poll, but let's remember that (1) most signatories were not academic philosophers, and (2) we've seen in the earlier threads here lots of philosophers speaking out against the treatment of Tuvel.

    Reply
  3. David Velleman

    In response to Mazviita Chirimuuta: The defense of academia from political interference depends on the claim that academic discussion must be free of ideological control, and that claim is discredited if we are not willing to apply it to ourselves. That's why the Provost of NYU felt it necessary to repudiate the god-awful essay by one of her Vice Provosts in the The Stone: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/opinion/free-speech-at-nyu.html

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  4. Mazviita

    I never said that we should not apply those standards to ourselves. I was simply challenging the idea that online petitions/open letters are the right way to defend such values.

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  5. Mohan Matthen

    Contrary to Mazviita, I find it extremely implausible that outrage with the conduct of Hypatia's Associate Editors and with two of Tuvel's teachers is simply displaced despair re Trump, Le Pen, and Farage. I also disagree with her about the open letter. Generally, I think petitions and open letters are faintly ridiculous and quite ineffective. But what I find distressing about a number of cases that have been discussed recently is that so many professional philosophers are afraid of saying what they believe—afraid not because they will be targeted by their employers, but because they think they might be stigmatized by their peers in social media. An open letter would put pressure on these people to come out into the open, and, as Molly Gardner says, serve as evidence of where the profession stands.

    And to the associate editors of Hypatia who signed the letter: if you are willing to go public with your disagreement of the editors who accepted the article, then surely you should either publicly call on them by name to resign or resign yourselves.

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  6. Philosophet

    I think an open letter is probably called for in this case. I have a bit of reluctance because I worry that it might just be a new platform for people to virtue signal, and, more personally, I fear it will provide another opportunity for me to be disappointed in my fellow philosophers, but in the end, I think it is important because what is being threatened by this case is the atmosphere of open inquiry that makes it possible to do philosophy at all. And I say that as a woman of color who takes seriously and works to ameliorate philosophy's well known problems concerning diversity. There is little point in creating the conditions for a more diverse profession if we decrease the number of viewpoints that are deemed acceptable.

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  7. Eric Johnson-DeBaufre

    Professor Chirimuuta's argument against an expression of support for Tuvel exhibits the same partiality displayed by Lisa Miracchi in a recent call for the development of "standards of care and scholarship" in light of the Hypatia controversy (see http://dailynous.com/2017/05/03/scholarship-and-care/). Miracchi sees the development of such standards as "the central question raised by Tuvel's article and Hypatia's handling of it." In both cases there appears to be a blindness towards, to use of the language of the authors of the open letter, a form of harm. Miracchi sees the need for standards of care to be developed to prevent or at least minimize the recurrence of articles like Tuvel's, but not to avoid the defaming of an untenured colleague. Chirimuuta, by contrast, urges against another petition in order to spare the authors and signatories of the open letter the possible harm that might result but fails to recognize the harms that may have been done to Tuvel by the petition signed by those very people.

    Such obvious partiality points, in my opinion, to a need for some kind of statement that takes a more dialectical approach to the recent controversy. If the profession cannot simultaneously hold that idea that 1) one ought to make a genuine effort to acquaint oneself with relevant material in certain subfields before publishing on them and 2) that failures to do so should not occasion public shaming and calls for retraction then its future is gloomy.

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  8. Undecided

    Different letters could be written and different audiences addressed. Distinguish, for instance, between the following:

    1) A letter sent to Wiley signed by academic philosophers requesting that Wiley investigate the letter/apology issued by Hypatia.

    2) An open letter expressing support for Tuvel.

    Perhaps 2 has merit, but I'm unsure. If it could be restricted to just philosophers, it might show the press the profession's view of the whole affair. But there's no guarantee it would and it's unclear what other tangible benefits the letter would have. Those who support the contents of the Hypatia apology, whether they signed it or not, won't be swayed by any open letter of support for Tuvel. So what else might such a letter achieve? Perhaps Hypatia will apologize for the apology?

    In comparison, 1 is a sober measure by members of a profession concerned that one of its academic journals is misbehaving, especially given the possibility that Hypatia's letter defamed Tuvel. And asking Wiley to investigate does not prejudge the outcome of that investigation. Perhaps they'll find that Hypatia's apology was reasonable and within their purview. Perhaps they'll find that the apology was improper and changes are needed to the editorial board. One could ask Wiley to investigate without having any firm view about whether Hypatia should or should not have issued that apology.

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  9. Russell Blackford

    I am very upset to see the witch hunt against Tuvel, which included some very senior academics in philosophy and cognate disciplines going after a relatively powerless junior colleague merely because they disagreed with her philosophical approach. Equally upsetting is the cowardly response by the Hypatia editors when confronted by a mob. I would gladly sign a letter calling for the resignation of everyone associated with Hypatia's editorial board. Their actions over the past several days have betrayed the most fundamental scholarly values. I also wonder how Wiley-Blackwell can continue to publish Hypatia while it is under its current editorial management.

    The support that Tuvel is apparently receiving from her own institution gives me heart.

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  10. Daniel Kaufman

    So long as Hypatia continues to employ the partisan editorial standards outlined in the Associate Editor's post on the Daily Nous — which I copied in the other discussion thread — I think it should be treated as a non-refereed, partisan organ, similar to a publication issued by a partisan think-tank. Consequently, publishing in it should count or not count for hiring and tenure/promotion decisions, in the same as if one had published in the Heritage Foundation's magazine or Cato's.

    Reply
  11. Dirk Baltzly

    Mazviita Chirimuuta is someone I know from days at Monash and I respect her good sense. You need not agree with her about whether the Tuvel affair represents displaced anger at conservative politicians who would manifestly and seriously harm trans people in order to appreciate a call for restraint.

    Restraint on the part of Tuvel's critics would have resulted in a critical reply in the next issue of Hypatia rather than a call for the paper to be retracted. Those dismayed by the actions of the editorial board of Hypatia and considering letters of protest or campaigns of counter-shaming would perhaps be well advised to themselves manifest the restraint that they take to have been lacking in Tuvel's critics.

    It will be objected that 'extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice … and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.' But let's remember who said that: it was Barry Goldwater in 1964 when his nomination as the Republican Presidential candidate set in motion a form of American conservatism that has culminated in the utterly unrestrained politics of the present.

    I submit that Goldwater was wrong. There can be situations in which moderation in the pursuit of justice — or what one takes to be justice — is a virtue. When lack of restraint threatens shared understandings about process that generally (but perhaps not invariably) serve the philosophical community well, then restraint in the means through which one seeks to rectify perceived injustices is no vice.

    Perhaps everyone should take a step back and think about the fragility of our (admittedly imperfect) scholarly conventions and norms.

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  12. AnonGrad

    Undecided writes: "One could ask Wiley to investigate without having any firm view about whether Hypatia should or should not have issued that apology."

    This strikes me as buck passing. Do we really want commercial publishers to be the arbiter's of our professional disputes? It's bad enough that, due to historical circumstance, publishers already serve as the gatekeepers of who may or may not venture beyond paywalls in order to read the very articles that *we* ourselves write, edit, and review. It would be a shame if we further assigned publishers the ability to determine both our editorial standards and the true north of our profession's moral compass. I, too, am undecided about the value of yet another petition. But I could not care less about what a for-profit entity like Wiley thinks about this issue.

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  13. Thomas Basbøll

    I can see why one might be uncomfortable with a petition calling for the resignation of anyone at this point. What would be interesting is a boycott of Hypatia motivated by the sort of thing Daniel is saying: the journal has revealed itself to be something other than a serious scholarly journal. It can recover its ethos by replacing its entire (it seems) editorial board *with people who didn't sign the letter calling for a retraction of the Tuvel paper*. I wonder how many philosophers with the relevant expertise remain.

    This got me thinking: how many of the journal's published authors and past reviewers didn't sign the letter and are now embarrassed to be associated with it? The strongest statement at this point would come from that pool. I.e., authors and reviewers declaring that they will not submit to or review for Hypatia until the current board recognizes what it has done wrong and takes responsibility for it. Perhaps that can be short of resignation for some.

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  14. Molly Gardner

    Regarding my earlier comment, my larger concern was this. Right now, entire philosophy departments are at risk of being eliminated from universities. Education is under attack. Anti-intellectualism is rampant. If we try to limit the damage to our own discipline's reputation by shifting some of the blame onto other academics (even if we are technically correct to do so), we're still ultimately shooting ourselves in the foot. We're just changing the aim a bit. I'm not sure if an open letter would actually help limit the damage to our reputation as a discipline (or to the reputation of academia, generally); maybe just letting the controversy die down is the best we can do. But if the letter or a poll *would* help mitigate some of the damage, that would be a reason to do it.

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  15. Saladin Meckled-Garcia

    From the other side of the pond,

    I would support and sign a letter that served two clear purposes whilst avoiding a third. The useful purposes would be:
    1. Defending Tuval herself and firmly asserting that her treatment is unacceptable and deserves redress;

    2. Asserting (oh when did things come to this!) the freedom of inquiry principle against curtailment through a) ideologically motivated reputational punishments (such as online pile ons), and b) the application of dogmatic partisan approaches as *criteria for publication*.

    I think both are absolutely necessary in the face of the increasing demand for a particular way of doing "philosophy" that sees it as the application of achieved knowledge or doctrines. Take Lisa Guenther's defence of Hypathia's apology here: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.guenther.982/posts/1038183326316452 Where we learn that the reason Tuval's article needed to be withdrawn is because it is an example of (Rawls-inspired) "ideal theory" which attempts to "grapple with principles and claims on their own merits" and is for that reason a "transphobic" and "anti-black" ideology. All *because* Charles Mills says that about ideal theory. The test for legitimate publication,then, is dogma.

    It really is time that philosophers said "no thank you!" to such intellectual shackles, and a collective letter asserting this would stand as a beacon of principle. It would encourage and give hope to people in the profession that are beginning to despair.

    However, the purpose that should be *avoided*, I would argue, is to act as a vehicle for targeting indignation at individuals (the signatories of the original letter or editors of the journal). That would simply respond to one "pile on" is with another. Better to demand positive and institution- or profession-level things (reinstatement, holding the journal to its declared standards, remedy, defence of the principle, etc,).

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  16. harry b

    I wouldn't sign a letter calling for the resignation of the board. That's a matter for them, and it does seem to me a sort of pointless escalation. (I can see why people who have published in Hypatia might want to do that, though) Saladin and Molly have articulated the purposes for any putative letter, though I would want to make explicit another (which I think is implicit in Saladin's first), which is just to demonstrate to Tuvel herself, who must be feeling pretty lousy, that there is a feeling widespread throughout the profession that she has been seriously mistreated. Brian in particular has been very good on this, but I suspect that a letter to her chair condemning her treatment, would be signed by a lot of people, including quite prominent people. Maybe more would sign it if it were not public? But Molly's point remains.

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  17. Philippe Lemoine

    I don't see any reason to suspect that people who expressed their indignation at Hypatia's decision to apologize for having published Tuvel's are just channelling anger about Trump toward Hypatia. I think that, on the contrary, they are genuinely outraged by Hypatia's decision to apologize and that it has nothing to with Trump or the larger political context. In fact, I think Chirimuuta's email illustrates precisely what I take to be the main problem with Tuvel's critics and Hypatia's decision to apologize, namely that political considerations extraneous to philosophy were allowed to interfere with the professional standards that have traditionally regulated our field. I also think that, if we put together an open letter, it should focus on that point. At this point, it already seems very clear that a large majority of the profession strongly disapproves of what Tuvel's critics and Hypatia's editorial board have done, so I don't think an open letter could do much to make that clearer. I also worry that, given how much outrage has already been expressed at them, an open letter that focuses on that would come out as a witch hunt and, as far as I'm concerned, I would not feel comfortable signing a letter that gives this impression. As Harry said above, I'm also not interested in calling for the resignation of Hypatia's editorial board, because although I think it would be in the interest of the journal it's ultimately a matter for them. Instead, I think we should use this open letter to affirm that, in spite of Hypatia's decision, philosophers remain strongly attached to the standards of rigor and scholarship that have traditionally characterized their field. In particular, it should make clear that philosophers do not let political considerations interfere with scholarship, because I think it's the main worry. The truth is that philosophers, as individuals and as a group, don't have a lot of influence on politics, but they have a lot of influence on philosophy and could have even more if they sent the right signals to people outside of academia. A lot of people in the public already think that, at least in the humanities, academia is nothing but political activism masquerading as scholarship. I actually think that it's not far from being true in a lot of fields, but not in philosophy, at least not yet. We should make sure that it stays that way and that people in the public know that, because as David Velleman aptly said above, it will be difficult to defend academia against political interference unless it's clear that we ourselves don't let extraneous political considerations interfere with scholarship. Of course, the letter should also express solidarity with Tuvel, but I don't think it should be the main point.

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  18. James Goetsch

    Basically I agree with what Saladin Mecklin-Garcia said above and would happily sign such a letter. I think the letter would be important (as others have noted) to counter the public impression that a majority of our profession agree with what the Hypatia editors have said. And while I have sent a note to Tuval myself in support of her, a public letter ought to be good for her to see, as harry b pointed out above. And certainly I would love to go on record as supporting the need to "grapple with principles and claims on their own merits" as Mecklin-Garcia suggests. So: is someone going to write up a letter?

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  19. Guy Aitchison

    There’s a number of things I’ve found unsettling about this whole affair:

    – The reckless use of language such as “violence and “harm” to denigrate and silence the work of colleagues, which is not simply rhetorical excess but appears to draw support from an entire theoretical outlook in some fields of philosophy
    – The attempt to import confrontational activist techniques such as rhetorical exaggeration, polarisation, public denunciation and calls for censorship (which may well be legitimate in certain political contexts) into academic philosophical debate where they are not legitimate
    – The dishonest presentation of a junior scholar’s work
    – The claim that the traditional methods of philosophy – drawing comparisons, scrutinising assumptions, examining both sides of the argument – are politically suspect and ideological based on a false account of their use
    – The attempt to systemically prevent certain issues from being addressed and certain questions being asked and the chilling effect this has
    – The knee-jerk resort to insults and labels (e.g. “transmysoginistic”) against those clearly committed to affirming rights, including (astonishingly) by a number of philosophy professors

    On that basis, I would be happy to sign a letter along the lines that Saladin suggested that voiced support for the norm of free academic exchange. I agree however that it should not single out particular individuals for blame or demand any institutional or professional repercussions of any sort. The point of such a letter, I take it, would be to affirm the integrity of philosophy as an open, critical enterprise.

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  20. David Wallace

    Open letters are a continuation of policy by other means. Here's the policy outcome *I* would like.

    What *should* have happened is something like this: Hypatia's editor, or the associate editors, make a placeholder facebook post or similar that recognises people are upset, acknowledges that this upset is happening against a backdrop of legitimate anger (cf Sally Haslanger's essay at Daily Nous), affirms its commitment to academic freedom, and says that they'll consider the call for retraction privately in accordance with journal good practice. (It would have been nice to have some comment to the effect that *mere* strength of opinion wouldn't in itself be enough to overturn an academic decision, but I could have lived without it.)

    Then (in this more-desirable possible world) they contact Professor Tuvel, possibly contact the main authors of the Open Letter for more detailed feedback, do a proper consideration of the merits of the retraction request, and make a call. Judging by some of what Professor Tuvel has already said, that call is: a correction to the paper, with Professor Tuvel's signature on it, that removes the apparently-offensive use of names (she's already said she supports that), a restatement of Hypatia's commitment to peer review and open discussion, an invitation for those who disagree with the academic substance of the paper to write and respond, and perhaps – privately – an internal review of the structure of their refereeing system. Some people would still be angry, I imagine, but the controversy would have been defused without compromise of basic principle or the perception of capitulating to pressure.

    Instead, I think Hypatia's associate editors, under intense pressure and against a backdrop of ongoing issues, made a serious error of judgement, one that's harmed Professor Tuvel but also damaged their journal and the academic standing of their subfield. But it's possible for them to fix most of that damage. They can gracefully walk back some of the original response and recommit to core principles of academic freedom and due process; they can also recommit to the issues of justice and responsibility they flagged in their earlier letter. Then they can go ahead and do that confidential consideration of retraction and probably reach the policy outcome above. If something like that happens, the thing can probably gracefully die down without too much lasting damage.

    I am sceptical that policy goal will be furthered by an open letter or petition. They are blunt instruments; they tend to elide different positions; they get used by third parties for other goals. Rightly or wrongly, an open letter of this kind will be seen as being in part an attack on feminist philosophy itself, and on inclusiveness and diversity in philosophy, and will make it much harder for Hypatia's editor and associate editors to gracefully walk back their earlier mistake.

    Here's the short version of this long post. There have been lots of petitions and open letters in philosophy over the last few years. If, like me, you think this has, net, been unhelpful either for the civility and quality of academic discourse, or for making substantive progress in the profession on issues of importance, then hesitate before organising another one. (If you're going to anyway, do it along the sort of lines Phillippe Lemoine and Guy Aitchison sketch, though I'm unconvinced even that would be helpful unless worded with great care.)

    Incidentally, I don't myself have any settled views about whether Professor Tuvel did anything wrong by using names the way she did. I'm assuming she did for the sake of the discussion, since it's a point of agreement between her and Hypatia's editors in any case.

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  21. Patricia

    Dear Mr. Leiter,

    As an off-and-on reader of The Leiter Report for the past 15 years, I’d like to offer my thoughts on the controversy surrounding “In Defense of Transracialism” by Rebecca Tuvel.

    You’re right: the response from feminist academia has been dramatic and harsh, but not without good reason. I spent most of yesterday reviewing the paper and the struggle is real not to rip into Tuvel’s analysis. As a young philosopher, I was trained not to use one person as a token for an entire group, especially if that person’s experience is unfamiliar to me. I was reminded to examine my own bias and account for it when applying a lens of right and wrong to the ethics of another. I learned that as much as I would like to develop my philosophy in a tower and float it down to earth, the earth would resist—and that resistance could be useful.

    As a specifically feminist philosopher I was admonished never to forget the “otherness” that subtends my identity, the aporia of consciousness and the necessary violence that transfixes it with Self. Feminism is a response to oppression; as such, self-awareness is ineluctably intertwined in its framework. To forget our own embodiment and historical context is to risk reiterating the very oppression we stand against.

    The demand for embodiment is why those outside of our field sometimes think “anything goes” in feminist critical thought: if we’re willing to listen to anyone’s story, isn’t it all relative? No, it’s not. Alongside self-awareness we demand research and ethically-obtained data like any other discipline. We look for reasoned argumentation that describes our findings and brings forth useful insight. It doesn’t have to be actionable or even novel but in general it should be reproducible: others should be able to look at the data and follow the reasoning without forcibly suspending disbelief at every turn. Without these criteria it would be easy, easier than in most other fields, to fall into tempting wonderland of relativism and slack scholarship.

    “In Defense of Transracialism” doesn’t yet meet the commonly-accepted requirements of feminist critical thought: it doesn’t name or contextualize its author, it tokenizes its subjects, it isn’t self-aware of its bias. It doesn’t meet the commonly accepted standards of academic philosophy at large: it misconstrues and misportrays various arguments in its fields, it suffers from poor reasoning and pernicious self-contradiction, and it cites questionable sources to validate widely-discounted claims. Many academics, editors, and other interested parties concur that there was a failure in the peer-review process that led to its publication. Therefore, respectfully, it is neither reckless nor madness to challenge the scholarship of “In Defense of Transracialism.” Further, the letter and the response from Hypatia’s editorial board are not defamation. Defamation requires that the claims in question be untrue, and insofar as the merit of scholarship is determined in congress and according to commonly-accepted academic standards, nothing in the letter or the journal’s response is untrue.

    I suspect that most of the folks who signed the letter to Hypatia feel a deep sense of sympathy for Rebecca Tuvel. Many are wide open to the idea of transracialism as a concept and are eager to explore the arguments, jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, the problems with “In Defense of Transracialism” are not issues of theory but of mechanics. To engage it publicly would be embarrassing, vitriolic, and a waste of resources at that level of scholarship.

    On a hopeful note: I understand that this tempest could potentially harm Tuvel’s career, but couldn’t it also be used as a springboard? Given the notoriety of “l’affaire Tuvel” I’m sure a lot of well-known philosophers would lend her their ear and their advice; she could revise and republish the paper to great acclaim. Feminism loves a triumphant underdog, especially one who champions the dignity of the disenfranchised. As I’ve said, many of us are sympathetic to her situation and would love to see her recover brilliantly. In fact, some might say it’s part and parcel of her feminist responsibility.

    Respectfully,
    Patricia Hidalgo

    BL COMMENT: Thanks for your comments. Two small points: (1) no one has objected to criticism of the article; the objection has been to retraction after peer review, complete with an apology from the editors which demeans the author and the journal; (2) unless it is true that Tuvel is an incompetent scholar, she has been defamed by the open letter and by the apology issued by the Hypatia editors. Whether she wants to seek legal redress remains to be seen.

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  22. Philosophet

    I should add that the reason I favor an open letter is not to bring about resignations from Hypatia's editorial staff. As far as I'm concerned, that is no longer a philosophy journal, and how they choose to go on in the face of their self-created mess is for them to decide. I just think it would be helpful to have a list of people who meet a minimal standard of intellectual seriousness and care. The list could function sort of like the "safe space" stickers you see around some campuses and would be helpful for navigating large gatherings of philosophers.

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  23. Frances Howard-Snyder

    I would sign such a letter — almost certainly — depending on its wording. It would be helpful to encourage signers to indicate their discipline as well as their institutional association. The original open letter landed (on my psyche) as a ton of bricks, in no small part because of the number of signers, their illustrious institutions, and the mistaken belief that most of them were philosophers. It felt to me like a concerted effort to silence an idea and to intimidate anyone who might think of publishing this or any other unorthodox idea. When I realized that only a tiny proportion of signer were philosophers, I felt much better about my discipline.

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  24. Peter Sutton

    I would be interested in seeing an open letter criticizing Hypatia's editors for their response to the original letter. My only hesitancy about signing it would be the worry that it would further politicize what began as an (interesting) philosophical question. But I think I would overcome that hesitancy.

    I have not read the article, nor have I read much of the debate, but I did read that original anti-Tuvel letter, and I applied what I take to be the legal "anti-SLAPP standard" for coming to my conclusion. That is, I assumed (for the moment) that every claim they made was true and that there was no contrary or mitigating evidence that Tuvel could adduce. Then I asked whether, on that assumption, they had a plausible case for retraction or apology. The answer was an obvious 'no'.

    The very idea that a philosopher cannot write about race/gender theory unless they accept certain conventions and use certain vocabulary is anathema. The idea that a paper should be retracted because the author made a mistake in characterizing another philosopher's views, or failed to engage relevant literature is silly. In any of these cases, the correct response is to write a paper explaining why the original paper was wrong. If the criticisms had merit, and were well-written, I'm sure Hypatia would have published them. That's how I always thought philosophy worked. Claim, objection, reply, repeat…eventually the truth (or as close as we can get to it) will come out.

    Shame on the people who signed that original letter, and shame on Hypatia for their response. Are we not philosophers?

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  25. Justin Kalef

    I agree with the direction that much of this thread is taking.

    Though I have personally agreed with the causes advanced by some open letters that find their way onto the screens of lay people, I have always felt a little uncomfortable signing them _as a philosopher_. What I mean is that I think that all of us, as individuals, should be free to sign whatever letters we want, but that we do badly to present philosophy as a discipline that collectively advocates anything at all other than the preservation and promotion of philosophical thinking, work and standards. If we rally together, while claiming to represent a unanimous or near-unanimous agreement within the discipline, to take a position on any issue, we present ourselves as saying that holding the opposite position would somehow disqualify one as a philosopher. Anyone reading such a letter who does not already feel confident about the position taken could (rightly, I think) come to wonder whether we are really living up to the standard of objective inquiry, if they even realize we are meant to live up to such a standard. I worry that letters like that might foster the impression that academics, and philosophers more specifically, are really here to promote a certain worldview rather than help inquire into the various questions. Particularly in the current political and economic climate, with the fate of the university and our place within it in question, this does not seem to be a good view to foster.

    However, I like the idea of using the opportunity of creating a letter that aims to restate and clarify what it is that we qua philosophers are committed to: free and unbiased inquiry into even (and perhaps especially) the most sensitive matters. A letter that makes clear our commitment to this and what it involves, without mentioning any signatories to the original letter, or the editors who made the decision to retract the article, or perhaps even the name of the journal, might do all an open letter would need to do in communicating our discipline's values and relevance to lay people who have by now heard of this affair.

    Beyond that public relations work, I think Daniel Kaufman is entirely right that this incident has revealed an problem we ought to tackle as a profession. A journal whose selections (or retractions) are made to some extent on the basis of how well the articles fit in with certain advocacy goals does not seem very different from the publications of the Cato Institute, and it would be wrong for anyone on a tenure, hiring, or promotion committee to work under a mistaken impression about what publication in such a forum signals about the fair process such an article survived. We should also be wary, it seems, of any journal whose editorial policies prefer writing 'from the inside' (when this entails that two different people submitting exactly the same article would be treated differently on the basis of the sex, race, sexual orientation, or any other personal details of the submitter), or that make 'engagement with the proper literature' a criterion in acceptance when this entails that an important dissenting view whose author doubts the legitimacy of existing literature might be rejected on those grounds alone, regardless of the merits of the reasoning presented.

    To take that concern seriously — and it seems from this incident that we have good cause for taking it seriously now — it would appear wise for our professional organization to maintain an open list of journals that have failed to uphold the editorial standards of the discipline, and to recommend ways for those journals to correct their bad practices and return to good standing in the discipline. While the Tuvel incident is very unfortunate, it seems to be just one symptom of a strong current that has unmoored much work in a few areas of philosophy for a long time now. Having a clear set of basic editorial standards in place for the discipline, and ensuring that they are actually in practice on the editorial boards of the journals that count for the purposes of professional review, would probably have a very salutary effect.

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  26. Daniel Kaufman

    Thank you, Justin, and I very much like your suggestion towards the end. Brian has been chronicling the disturbingly illiberal and more importantly, anti-philosophical trends that have been emerging within our profession for a good decade now, and Hypatia is hardly the only example of it. Just as the APA censures institutions for failing to live up to the standards of our discipline, it should censure journals that do so as well.

    I am hoping very much that this latest outrage will finally constitute a bridge too far; that the discipline will finally be brought back into alignment with its Socratic heritage; and that we will strongly and unifiedly reject the demands of the small and increasingly hostile minority who want to turn philosophy into an exercise in ideological and political advocacy. Therein lies the certain death of of our subject, both institutionally and in the public perception, where it is already on life support.

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  27. Colin Heydt

    I applaud the non-dogmatic, judicious, and empathetic spirit expressed in David Wallace's comment. We need more of that in academia.

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  28. Aaron Smuts

    "As a specifically feminist philosopher I was admonished never to forget the “otherness” that subtends my identity, the aporia of consciousness and the necessary violence that transfixes it with Self. Feminism is a response to oppression; as such, self-awareness is ineluctably intertwined in its framework. To forget our own embodiment and historical context is to risk reiterating the very oppression we stand against."

    What does this mean?

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  29. PhD student

    I think another philosophy journal should offer to re-publish Tuvel's article. If anyone here is on the editorial board of a generalist, well-regarded philosophy journal, please consider it — I think it would do a lot to salvage her reputation and reaffirm the norms of the profession.

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  30. Jacob Seeley

    "Unfortunately, the problems with “In Defense of Transracialism” are not issues of theory but of mechanics. To engage it publicly would be embarrassing, vitriolic, and a waste of resources at that level of scholarship."

    The editors of Hypatia appear to disagree with you – they engaged very publicly with Tuvel's article and its contents via their open letter.

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  31. Eric Odgaard

    I am not a philosopher; I am a psychologist, upset by the damage done to all of Academia through the "apology" of the Associate Editors on the Hypatia FB page. But one reaction I see repeatedly mentioned in these comments has me concerned as well: that Hypatia should be treated as less than a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

    To do so would, to borrow a phrase, 'harm' everyone who has published recently, and whose papers have been accepted by but not yet published, in Hypatia. Presumably, these authors submitted and accepted publication in the journal based on its reputation prior to mid-April.

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  32. Justin Kalef

    That is true, Eric (Comment 31). However, if indeed there was some bias in the review process at a journal for a certain period, as the comments of at least one of its associate editors may suggest, then that must raise doubts about the credibility of anything published in the journal during that period.

    This is why it seems important to at least some of us for the APA or some other professional organization to look into the evidence that any journal may have been illicitly trying to do double duty as a peer-reviewed and objective academic publication and an organ for a particular social cause (similar to, as Daniel Kaufman puts it, an advocacy publication put out by the Cato Institute). If that suggestion turns out to be credible, then it seems important to determine whether, in fact, there is reason to believe that submissions that favored conclusions in tune with the advocacy goals of the journal would have had an easier time getting accepted than those that called those same conclusions into question, etc.

    I agree with you that this would be a very bad thing to many authors who might have unknowingly had perfectly good articles published in such a journal when there was no reason to think that there was any question of bias. I think that underscores how important it is for all academic journal editors to ensure that their practices are in keeping with the criteria of impartiality required for any professional publication. (I say this without making any judgment about what may be the case at Hypatia: it's a general point, and perhaps one or two members of the editorial board there 'went rogue' and gave a misleadingly bad impression of the editorial standards there).

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  33. Guy Aitchison

    To their credit the board and editors of Hypatia have now defended their publication of the article:

    http://dailynous.com/2017/05/06/hypatias-editor-board-president-defend-publication-tuvel-article/

    Given this firm statement of principle, I think it may be worth reconsidering – or at least holding fire – on any open letter until things have cooled down a bit. It may unnecessarily escalate things further to go ahead with it in this context. A letter at some future date however could serve as a response to the more general trends people are worried about, rather than being a response to this specific incident.

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  34. Saladin Meckled-Garcia

    Things get curiouser and curiouser: the Editor of Hypatia, Sally Scholz, and the President of the Board of directors, Miriam Solomon, have moved to *defend* the publication of Tuvel's piece. Scholz states that the Associate Editorial board acted independently in issuing their apology.

    See here: http://dailynous.com/2017/05/06/hypatias-editor-board-president-defend-publication-tuvel-article/

    This represents a split in the editorship of Hypatia, with the institutional hierarchy of the journal defending the article (and by implication repudiating the demand to retract).

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  35. harry b

    According to the CHE piece:

    http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Journal-Article-Provoked-a/240021

    the article has not actually been revoked, and the Editor is standing behind Tuvel. So, any letter should reflect the facts, whatever they are (and someone needs to figure out exactly what they are!). Also, this matters for how much damage this does to the journal. Of the (very few) people I've discussed this with, all three who would, as a rule, consider submitting to Hypatia have said they'd never submit there (me too, unless things change).

    And just wanted to second Frances's suggestion that signatories include their disciplinary affiliation. The CHE story says: "Many scholars who have kept a close eye on the affair continue to believe that the associate editors’ apology was warranted. In fact, some say the statement didn’t go far enough." and then goes on to quote a professor of English, Philosophy and Womens's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. "Many" doesn't mean "Most", of course, but "Some" seems more accurate. The sense the blogs (Brian's, Daily Nous) and personal conversations give is that most in the profession who are paying attention support Tuvel.

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  36. Rachel Barney

    Dear Brian, please count me as one voice saying, please no Open Letter. The very phrase inspires dread at this point, and I have a strong impression, not sure where it's coming from, that maybe they just aren't very well suited to serve as a vehicle for rational argument.

    I am basically on the same side as you are here, and I think it's emerged clearly enough that so is most of the profession — a roll call vote is not required. And I can't imagine what it could accomplish other than to provoke further digging in on the other side, and magazine articles on "Why Do Philosophers Keep Yelling At Each Other?". Now that the Editor of Hypatia has firmly repudiated the call for a retraction, and thereby dissociated it from the journal as such, there is really not that much to see here — just people being angry on the internet.

    And finally, what Mazviita Chirimuuta said seems to me very important. There are far, FAR bigger threats out there to the academic enterprise than an unsuccessful petition to Hypatia. Most of the world (except I guess France, yay) is ruled by our common enemies — isn't it time for us all to go back to being angry and depressed about that?

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  37. Brian Leiter

    As Prof. Meckled-Garcia's comment, above, suggests, a letter/petition is on hold in light of the important statement by the Hypatia editor. I agree there's far worse wickedness out there, but we can actually do more about threats to academic freedom like this one than we can about some of the other evils abroad in the land. But I do agree the current threat has been beaten back, and the defenders of this misconduct have been suitably disgraced.

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  38. Daniel Kaufman

    Rachel Barney wrote:

    And finally, what Mazviita Chirimuuta said seems to me very important. There are far, FAR bigger threats out there to the academic enterprise than an unsuccessful petition to Hypatia. Most of the world (except I guess France, yay) is ruled by our common enemies — isn't it time for us all to go back to being angry and depressed about that?

    = = =

    Seems to me that this should be directed towards the Hypatia Associate Editors, who savaged Tuvel, not to mention the rest of the social justice mob, who are willing to put the shiv in anyone, if they deviate even the slightest bit from the currently demanded language and observances.

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  39. Russell Blackford

    The strong, clear, correct statement by Professor Scholz certainly changes the situation at Hypatia. Yes, it's now a matter for the editor, the publishers, and others involved. I do think, though, that ongoing vigilance is required with this case.

    Professor Scholz evidently understands how scholarly publishing is supposed to work, particularly in a field such as philosophy, so kudos to her for that and for her courage.

    But it's clear that there are many other people in the academy, including some philosophers, who are willing to subvert scholarly values for the sake of their political commitments. Some, including some philosophers, are very aggressive about it and are willing to damage colleagues' careers if needed. This remains a worrying situation.

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  40. London UCU member

    Professors Meckled-Garcia and Blackford are correct that the statement by the Editor of Hypatia (Prof Scholz) radically changes the situation with respect to Hypatia itself.

    However, the initial Springer Shotwell et al “open letter”, which triggered the response from the Hypatia Associate Editors, is still in place with at least two law school professors viewing it as defamatory (Leiter and Anita Bernstein). Is it useful to start a crowd-funding exercise to raise money to obtain legal opinions from one or more law firms specialising in libel law? One such legal opinion, at least, should be American.

    I would also suggest obtaining a legal opinion in Britain, which has different libel laws from the US. A number of the signatories on the open letter come from University of London colleges (and also from the University of Sheffield). The UCU universities & colleges union has explicit policies against online bullying, of which defamation would presumably be a particular instance. The colleges within the University of London also have policies to prevent staff and students from engaging in online bullying. If a British legal opinion confirmed the Springer Shotwell open-letter as an arguable case of defamation, then formal complaints could be made to the colleges in question. The London law-firm I have in mind has done libel work for the Guardian newspaper, and so has considerable experience of the grey areas around public discourse.

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  41. Saladin Meckled-Garcia

    The open letter is indeed still out there.

    The apology from the Assoc. Ed. Board is still out there.

    The commentaries by defenders of the open letter (including some of its tenured signatories) asserting doctrinal constraints on freedom of inquiry (by re-defining legitimate scholarship), ownership of certain subject matters by particular "specialisms", and validity of argument according to author-identity, are still out here.

    It seems, then, there is still a need for a public statement from professional philosophers – just not now directed at the Journal – showing that at least a good portion don't go in for this sort of thing.

    Law suits take a long time.

    It may be an opportunity to show widespread support for pluralism of scholarship and freedom of philosophical inquiry?

    PS: apparently, I am told, both Stalin and Lenin signed the open letter under their real names – can anyone confirm this? I don't seem to be able to find the link with the list of signatories now.

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  42. David Wallace

    Let's be consistent here. The signatories of the Open Letter have free speech rights too. Criticising them is one thing; using the law or their institutions to punish them is quite another.

    BL COMMENT: They don't have a legal right to defame someone, that's what I thought the point was.

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  43. David Wallace

    I'm no lawyer and have no real idea whether the open letter counts as defamatory under US or English law. This is a moral/prudential point, not a legal one: I don't think it's a good idea to use legal means as a recourse either to very harsh and unfair criticism of academic work, or to totally unreasonable demands of third parties. I think that on principle, but I also think it's a prudentially bad idea in this case in that it risks a counter-narrative about gatekeepers suppressing the speech of underrepresented minorities. (That counter-narrative is already out there on social media; it's ridiculous as long as people are just harshly criticizing them, but becomes less so if they get sued.)

    I should say that suing a *journal* over inappropriate conduct would be a different matter; but the original Open Letter is (disgraceful) speech, not conduct.

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