Today’s post has been written on behalf of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) by the following members of its Steering Group: Harrison Inefuku (representing the Library Publishing Coalition); Rebecca McLeod (representing NISO); Alice Meadows and Charlotte Roh (representing SSP); and Brit Stamey (representing ISMTE).

The past few years – and, in the United States (U.S.), especially the last few weeks – have been a roller coaster for those of us who are committed to improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). George Floyd’s murder in 2020 led to an outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and for DEIA initiatives in general. Organizations large and small, commercial and not-for-profit – including many scholarly communications organizations – launched or reinvigorated their efforts to address the many inequities that still exist in our society.

Unfortunately, much of this progress is now being reversed. Big name companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon are scaling back or eliminating their DEIA programs, as are an increasing number of US universities and higher education institutions (whether in anticipation of federal requirements or in an attempt to comply with state legislative mandates). A number of governments around the world have poor track records on DEIA, and the new U.S. administration’s “anti-wokeness” agenda – already being implemented as a result of a series of executive orders – is cause for serious alarm. Despite the potential illegality of at least some of the Trump administration’s orders, federal and state institutions and organizations are censoring all references to anything remotely related to DEIA from their websites. Critical information is rapidly disappearing from government websites, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Librarians and scientists are frantically working to preserve information before it is gone. This is not a time for normalizing despair, though; rather, it is a time when we must continue to stand against censorship and to support the scholarly community in both our words and our actions, according to our ethics and beliefs.

One way of doing so is to support organizations like the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC), whose mission is to work with organizations and individuals to build equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in scholarly communications while valuing differences, welcoming diverse perspectives, learning from different communities, making space for marginalized voices, and serving as allies. C4DISC was formed by a group of scholarly communications organizations that believe in the value of DEIA and that wanted to work together to encourage and support it in their communities. The C4DISC principles have now been adopted by 160 organizations, and the coalition is supported by over 40 members and partners. C4DISC’s vision is a socially just community that welcomes, values, and celebrates all who seek to contribute to scholarly communications. We know that many, if not most, organizations in our community share this vision, and we hope that this post will encourage you to continue to work towards building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in your own corner of scholarly communications.

Importantly, prioritizing diversity in our publishing work supports our authors, many of whom are at institutions that are already working to comply with executive orders. Researchers and academics, though, are fighting back. For example, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and others have filed a lawsuit “to block Trump’s unlawful and unconstitutional DEI executive orders, which threaten academic freedom and access to higher education for all.” AUPresses, a C4DISC founding member, has issued a statement repudiating the Executive Order on K-12 history education. And a number of other publishing organizations and journals have published statements in support of DEIA, including the American Geophysical Union, BMJ, and Nature.

At an individual level, we encourage you to keep doing what you’ve been doing in support of DEIA – organizing and attending training sessions, reading and sharing articles, and donating time and money to just causes. Here are some specific ideas for individuals to continue this important work:

• If you can safely speak up publicly, do; if you can’t, then demonstrate support behind the scenes
• If you’re a manager or in a position where you make decisions about hiring and promotion, ensure that you continue to focus on everything an individual can or does bring to their role; their lived, as well as their professional, experience
• Support organizations doing good work, whether locally, nationally, or internationally – if you cannot provide financial support, consider volunteering
• Seek out examples of research showing the value of DEIA to organizations, and of successful organizations that are continuing to support it (like Costco!)
• Collect and share examples of where being anti-DEIA is dangerous (e.g., not collecting demographic data for participants in clinical trials)
• Model inclusivity with your language choices; for example, instead of “whitepaper” use more specific terms like “position paper” or “industry briefing”, instead of “grandfathered in” use “legacy”
• Find reliable sources of information about DEIA that you can share to combat (intentional or unintentional) misinformation

And a couple for organizations:

• Avoid anticipatory compliance – many of the executive orders and other memos circulating face legal challenges; don’t rush to make changes to your communications, policies, or practices until you’re sure you are legally required to do so
• Try to ensure that your organization continues to both gather data on representation and enact policy to increase equity

If you are new to diversity education and action, C4DISC has some helpful tools to get you started, including:

• Toolkits for Equity, which provide a common framework for analysis, a common vocabulary and history, and best practices to address systemic inequities specific to the scholarly publishing industry. These include tailored materials to assist organizations in developing programming and best practices, to help bias-affected individuals constructively cope with barriers, and to encourage colleagues to become allies for others.
  • The Focused Toolkit for Journal Editors and Publishers: Building Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Editorial Roles and Peer Review
  • Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communications
  • Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations
  • Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
  • Antiracism Toolkit for Allies
• The C4DISC DEIA Community of Practice – a peer-to-peer community of interest, open to all who are interested in improving DEIA in scholarly communications, intended to enable participants to build trusted connections and provide knowledge-sharing opportunities.
• C4DISC Working Groups – these are set up on an as-needed basis; we are currently looking for volunteers to help run the community of practice, and will soon be putting out a call for members of our communications and outreach working group.

Sign up for C4DISC News Updates to ensure you hear about projects, events and opportunities to volunteer.

In addition, to help individuals and organizations respond to the current specific threats in the U.S. – at local, state, and federal levels – we are organizing an all-day Rapid Response Sprint from 2.00pm – 9.00pm UTC (see this time zone converter) on February 13 where we will assemble resources and provide support to C4DISC member and partner organizations and community members as they respond to the current political landscape around DEIA work. We’ve now reached capacity for participation in the sprint, but the outputs will be anonymized and shared on the C4DISC website.

There is ample evidence that organizations that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are more innovative, more productive, and more successful (much of this evidence has been funded, conducted, reviewed, published, and disseminated by the organizations in our space!). The supposedly “woke” information currently being removed from federal and other websites is, in fact, essential data for research being carried out across a wide range of disciplines — from education and history to medicine and physics. It is data that is vital for informed, sometimes life-saving, policy- and decision-making. So please continue to do whatever you can to support and advocate for DEIA in your own organization, both to ensure its future success and because it’s the right thing to do.