Journal criticized for not consulting black scholars on race
A leading journal of political philosophy took up the Black Lives Matter movement in its June issue without a single contribution from a black academic, triggering an outcry from African-American scholars.
Many black scholars felt insulted and ignored, and some took to social media to express their indignation. Two wrote open letters to the Journal of Political Philosophy.
The journal’s editors were apologetic for what they conceded was an “especially grave oversight” and vowed to increase diversity on its editorial board and in its pages.
The episode highlights what some intellectuals say is a lack of diverse voices in the influential research journals where getting a paper accepted is often vital to getting ahead in the publish-orperish world of academia.
The omission left many wondering: Do black minds matter?
“This is not an abstract philosophical question. There are real goods at stake when we talk about which voices count,” said Yale University philosopher Chris Lebron, who recently wrote a book on Black Lives Matter and wrote one of the letters.
The journal is a peerreviewed academic quarterly that explores topics such as sociology, history, economics and race. It devoted part of its latest issue to a “symposium” on Black Lives Matter, inviting three white scholars to contribute articles on racial bias, law enforcement and the right to personal security.
UCLA political scientist Melvin Rogers, one of the black scholars who raised objections with the journal, called the lack of black voices “especially egregious” in this case.
“You have a major social movement that comes about because of police violence and a failure of the state to respond effectively,” Rogers said. “You put together a symposium ... and construct it in such a way that replicates the very problem the movement is trying to respond to. The signal this sends to scholars of color that care about this is that they, too, are invisible.”
The journal editors responded: “We accept the point eloquently and forcefully made by our colleagues that this is an especially grave oversight in light of the specific focus of Black Lives Matter on the extent to which African-Americans have been erased and marginalized from public life.”
In April, the American Historical Review apologized after allowing a professor with views seen as supporting white supremacy to review a book on school segregation.
Some scholars suggested journals are reflecting a larger problem in academia: the small number of black scholars. Two percent of faculty members at the nation’s top institutions are black, said Ivory A. Toldson, editor of the Journal of Negro Education.