Since Scholastica’s founding in 2012, our mission has been to help democratize academic publishing, which we believe will lead to a world where research is more sustainable, inclusive, and widely accessible. The technology we build is part of realizing that vision — but it also depends on standing up for free, fair, and robust scholarly discourse and participation.
In recent weeks, Scholastica has been deeply concerned by the flurry of executive orders in the United States aimed at suppressing scholarly research with a focus on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including imposing bans on the use of specific words, removing publicly available research and data from government websites, and cutting research funding.
In response to these worrying developments, which threaten the academic community and the general public, we feel compelled to take a stand. Today, Scholastica joins the over 2,000 individuals and organizations who have signed the Declaration To Defend Research Against US Government Censorship. The Declaration, which was initiated by Alice Meadows, Lisa Schiff, Catherine Mitchell, Sara Rouhi, and Peter Suber, calls for signatories to act on one of the below recommendations:
- Support instances of resistance to U.S. government censorship.
- Promote venues for scholars to share, safeguard, and preserve their work beyond the reach of censorship, including the Data Rescue Project, Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Zenodo, and institutional repositories.
- Participate in efforts to track and record instances of U.S. government censorship.
- Share this Declaration broadly and encourage individuals and organizations in your communities to sign and support it.
Scholastica commits to actively participating in the Declaration To Defend Research Against US Government Censorship by broadly sharing it and related updates via our blog and social media channels and amplifying resources around defending research against censorship. We encourage concerned citizens and organizations reading this blog post to learn more about how to sign and participate in the Declaration here. You can follow and share related updates on social media via the hashtag #DefendResearch.
To our employees and partners, we reiterate Scholastica’s commitment to fostering DEI among our team and through our actions. Scholastica is a company that respects and celebrates diversity in all its forms.
While we share the dismay that many are feeling right now, we want to remind our community that, together, we are strong. We can chart the course for a brighter research future through collective action and standing up for the values we believe in.
