What the Royal Society of Chemistry gets wrong about free speech – The Spectator

Why has the Royal Society of Chemistry published a 37 page opinion piece entitled Academic free speech or right-wing grievance? in their new journal Digital Discovery?

Digital Discovery publishes theoretical and experimental research at the intersection of chemistry, materials science and biotechnology focusing on the development and application of machine learning. So it is a little surprising for them to publish a piece that argues that those who wish to have an honest debate about the limits around freedom of speech need to engage that conversation in a manner that avoids resonance with the language of White (heterosexual, cisgender male) supremacy, lest their arguments provide intellectual cover to those who would attack historically marginalised communities.

Why have they published an entirely derivative, factually inaccurate opinion piece, in a journal dedicated to an entirely unrelated topic

The article has nothing new to say about chemistry, but disappointingly it has little new to say about academic free speech either. The authors central argument that free speech should not mean freedom from consequences echoes a quotation often attributed to Idi Amin that there is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech. However, Amin is one of the few people not cited in the articles staggering 713 bibliographic references.

The author, Prof John Herbert, an ostensibly white male physical chemist at Ohio State University does not propose imprisoning those whose speech offends him. However, he does acknowledge that some of the protests directed at feminist academic Kathleen Stock might be characterised as harassment but then goes on to argue that a competing viewpoint is that one should not expect outspoken bigotry to be met with polite debate. Unfortunately, it seems that, despite the 37 pages in which to put his argument and the 713 references he had studied, Herbert was unable to include an actual quotation from Stock to justify any accusations of outspoken bigotry.

Herberts article would also have benefitted from some fact and sanity checking. He asserts that 18 states have banned transgender athletes from participating in youth sports, when one might think such a well-read researcher would know that all these states have done is bar males from participating in the female category. In all these states, transwomen enjoy the same sporting opportunities as other males. In his discussion of Stocks case, Herbert fails to mention UK anti-discrimination law which outlaws harassment on the basis of gender-critical belief, yet this is surely something the reader might want to bear in mind before petitioning universities to investigate scholarship that undermines trans identities.

So why have the Royal Society of Chemistry decided to publish an article about academic free speech and identity politics in a journal that one would expect to be dedicated to science?

A partial answer to this is that science does not exist in a vacuum. It is entirely proper for a science journal to contain the occasional opinion piece discussing political matters related to science. Identity politics is relevant to science because of equalities efforts to ensure that minority groups are properly treated in research and education. Moreover, the Royal Society of Chemistry made it essential for chemists to start discussing free speech by publishing controversial new guidance on offensive or inappropriate content in journal articles which banned anything that might reasonably offend someone on the basis of their religious or political beliefs.

So the question should not be why the Royal Society of Chemistry published an opinion piece. Instead, the question should be why they have published an entirely derivative, factually inaccurate opinion piece, in a journal dedicated to an entirely unrelated topic. Particularly so when the opinion piece is ten times the recommended length for opinion pieces in that journal and when the opinion piece might be understood as endorsing harassment.

This is where we finally get to some science. I hypothesized that the reason the Royal Society of Chemistry might publish such an article was that Herbert was already acquainted with the journals editor in chief Aln Aspuru-Guzik. To test my hypothesis, I searched for collaborations between the two. I discovered that they had co-authored an opinion piece for the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters entitled Words matter: On the debate over free speech, inclusivity, and academic excellence. This was consistent with my hypothesis.

Despite its manifold flaws, Herberts article does contain some valid observations. One is that we do not have as many female or black scientists in academia as we should. Scientists have a duty to investigate the causes of such disparities and to consider what steps we may need to take to remedy them.

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Herbert puts forward one possible explanation of such disparities. He notes that it is hard to hear the phrase merit-based hiring as anything but a dog-whistle whose real meaning is to encourage a process that protects existing power structures and sees such an approach to hiring as a form of ambient White supremacy.

However, I would like to put forward an alternative hypothesis: is it conceivable that the advantages accruing to white males in university science departments are not due to ambient White supremacy as such but simply good old-fashioned nepotism?

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What the Royal Society of Chemistry gets wrong about free speech - The Spectator