The month or so since President Trump’s inauguration has seen an unprecedented blizzard of executive orders (65 are listed in the Federal Register at the time of this writing), as well as a number of declarations and memoranda. These orders cover a range of issues, but it’s clear that a dangerous attack on the research and researchers we serve is underway. Given the administration’s supposed support for free speech and its attacks on censorship, it’s ironic – if not surprising – that so many of the orders focus on censoring US research and researchers, whether through supporting bans on words, on books, or on what sort of research can be funded or published. What is both surprising and alarming is how many research-supporting organizations and institutions outside of the federal government have immediately capitulated to these bans – despite the fact that it’s not even clear whether these orders are legal. In the past couple of weeks, numerous individual universities have proactively removed references to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content and/or programs on their websites.

What is needed in these uncertain times is strong leadership, not anticipatory compliance, and it’s been inspiring to see some organizations in our space publicly affirming their commitment to DEI and academic freedom. See, for example, BMJ’s call for resistance; COPE’s position statement on banned terms in scholarly publications and restrictions on researchers’ activities; Data Rescue Project’s effort to safeguard research data; Union of Concerned Scientists’ call for opposition (coordinated by the American Psychological Association); and, of course, SSP’s own recent statement here on The Scholarly Kitchen.

But much of the resistance to the Trump administration’s efforts to censor research and researchers is happening at the grassroots level, including this Declaration To Defend Research Against US Government Censorship, instigated by Lisa Schiff, together with Catherine Mitchell, Sara Rouhi, Peter Suber, and myself. Like many of those who are protesting against these growing threats to research, we are acting in a personal capacity, rather than on behalf of our organizations. As members of the scholarly communication community, we believe that researchers must be freely able to conduct, collaborate on, share, review, and discuss their research. The government censorship and restrictions being proposed and enacted in the U.S. fundamentally compromise US research and researchers and, therefore, will also compromise the knowledge they are able to produce. The consequences and risks – both short- and long-term – are dangerous, not just for the U.S. but for the whole world. They include:

• Suppression and distortion of research and research outcomes
• Retractions of research publications, data, and/or researcher names within those publications
• Erasure of the diverse voices and perspectives that contribute to a complete scholarly record
• Preemptive capitulation to censorship, abandonment of core values, and avoidance of important but politically sensitive topics
• Damage to the reputation and long-term competitiveness of U.S. research and, by extension, the economy
• Loss of U.S.-based researchers’ participation in the global scientific and research discourse
• Threats to the health and wellbeing of the general public, both in the U.S. and around the world

The Declaration therefore calls on members of the worldwide scholarly communication ecosystems – researchers, policy-makers, scholarly societies, libraries, higher education and research institutions, publishers, funders, and others – to publicly condemn and resist the censorship of academic research, and to commit to acting on at least one of these four recommendations:

1. Support instances of resistance to U.S. government censorship, such as those mentioned above.
2. Promote venues for scholars to share, safeguard, and preserve their work, beyond the reach of censorship, including Data Rescue Project, Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Zenodo and, of course, institutional repositories.
3. Participate in efforts to track and record instances of U.S. government censorship.
4. Share this Declaration broadly and encourage individuals and organizations in your communities to sign and support it, whether as members of the global scholarly communications community, concerned citizens, or both.

It’s hard not to feel disempowered and despairing at times like this, but it’s important to remember that we do all have a voice, as individuals and, even more powerfully, as a collective. So I very much hope that you’ll join the 1,000 plus who have already signed — whether personally or on behalf of organizations including ALPSP, AUPresses, and Emerald Publishing — to #DefendResearch, by signing the Declaration in your own name and/or on behalf of your organization. I also encourage you to share in the comments other examples of individuals and organizations that are fighting for the academic freedoms which are now under threat.