Now They are Censoring Peer Reviews
Redactions By APA Editors For Having the Wrong Opinion of Systemic Inequity
This is a second guest post by Michael S. Scheeringa. The first, which you can find here, describes his experience of being censored at Psychology Today (I describe my own experiences with Psych Today censorship and other nonsense there as well).
"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." Justice Stewart Potter.
What Happened
The journal Psychological Assessment, a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA), asked me to peer review a manuscript on the validity of a set of psychological measures for an indigenous population. On May 16, 2023, I submitted my review to the journal. On June 1, I received an email from the handling editor notifying me that the manuscript was being rejected but asked that I consider revising my review before it was forwarded to the authors.
The editor explained that she had a concern that some of my comments were not phrased in the correct ways about indigenous people. She was “loath to give the impression that we are skeptical about the ongoing systemic inequities experienced by Indigenous people.” I could either revise my review to delete any disagreement with the authors’ belief that the sample of indigenous people in this study had both suffered and been negatively impacted by systemic inequities, or the editor would be happy to simply delete entirely six of my twenty-seven concerns, the latter being “the most efficient approach.”
The following day, I replied that I was not willing to revise my review. I explained that the authors had made many claims in the manuscript that were their beliefs or claims unsupported by evidence. I noted that my comments were written in civil, polite, and respectful language, and that these comments ought to be of some value to the authors in their attempts to get their manuscript published.
The handling editor replied the same day to make “the more nuanced point” that she was not insinuating that my comments would have no value to the authors. The problem was that my comments could appear insensitive. For an explanation of APA policy on such issues, she referred me to the editor-in-chief.
On June 4, the editor-in-chief replied that the APA Editor’s Handbook compels editors to consider the “tone and spirit” of reviews, emphasizing that comments be “respectful.” I searched the internet for the APA Editor’s Handbook but could not locate it, so, on June 6, I asked the editor-in-chief where I might find a copy. On June 8, she replied that she had consulted with the APA Chief Editorial Advisor, and the handbook was not publicly available and would not be shared with me.
Meanwhile, on June 6, my review, plus that of a second reviewer, were sent to the authors with all or part of nine of my concerns redacted.
What Was Redacted?
The sentences that were redacted are shown below with strikethrough text. The version sent to the authors of the manuscript showed [REDACTED] in each spot instead of the strikethrough text. The numbers are those from my original review.
9. It was not clear why the sample needed to be referred to as Indigenous. Calling them indigenous seemed to have political or ideological overtones. Why aren’t they more precisely called Native Alaskan or Lakota?
10. The authors referred to “minoritized” samples as opposed to minority samples. Minoritized is a political term that implies the samples have been oppressed. Minoritized is not a scientific term that has precise meaning, and there was no evidence that the current sample was oppressed in their lifetimes.
11. The authors stated that Indigenous peoples and families have endured traumas including genocide, forced displacement and forfeiture of homelands. Those traumas do not apply to the current sample. This was not stated directly but it appears to be implying that a psychological impact of historical traumas can be passed down to generations through some sort of intergenerational transmission. This is a highly controversial theory and unproven. Further, the authors claimed that these historical traumas are compounded by present day structural racism. They provided no evidence that either this sample has endured structural racism or the part of the country this sample lives in included structural racism. Again, structural racism is a controversial political term, and has no precise scientific meaning.
12. The authors stated that “there is a critical need to move away from the inherently White ethnocentric lens that has been used in measure development that may overlook capturing unique strengths of Indigenous families.” This was a political statement that does not convey a precise or salient scientific issue and has no place in a science article. The authors did not provide a definition of a White ethnocentric lens, evidence that such definition does or does not have validity, or how such a lens creates empirically-flawed data.
14. The authors stated that Indigenous populations have respect for extended family systems and elders. They also stated family is the backbone for Indigenous families. Every culture has respect for extended family systems and elders and views family as the mainstay of culture. No evidence was provided how this is unique or relevant for Indigenous people.
18. The authors stated their partners preferred the term Indigenous over American Indian/Alaska Native and Native American. They did not state who their partners were or why they have credibility for this preference. Further, it was not clear why this was relevant to the manuscript.
21. The authors wrote that they “honored all community input.” It was not described what “honored” meant. This does not sound like a scientific activity.
22. The authors reported that 7.29% of the children were two-spirit identity. This is a controversial sexual identity and has no place in a science report. It obscures the sexual distribution of male and female and makes the sample unreplicable.
23. They reported that some children and caregivers identified as Latinx. I doubt they truly identified as Latinx. There were likely Latino who were forced to choose Latinx from the researchers’ menu of choices. Using Latinx is neither required by journals nor preferred by the ethnic group it is meant to describe. In my opinion, Latinx is more bigoted than Latino. Latinx was invented by non-Latino apologists to create a special consideration that Latinos never asked for. It is also controversial for being promoted by transgender activists who do not have Latinos’ best interests at heart. Many Latinos have made it clear they are proud of their native male/female language and very few of them use Latinx to refer to themselves.
In contrast to the handling editor’s explanation, only two of the nine redactions had anything to do with the topic of perceived systemic inequities. I am confident that my views are held by a minority of psychologists, at least among those who publish, but that does not mean I am wrong. It means that psychology (and psychiatry and social work) is a self-selected faction with liberal views, and the field lacks a balance of ideological heterogeneity (Duarte, et al., 2015).
How Common Is Redaction of Peer Reviews?
I have three concerns. First, I have submitted more than 300 reviews over the past 28 years, and this was the first time I am aware of that my review was altered by editors before being sent to authors. But now I am wondering how many times this has happened without me being told about it. For the vast majority of reviews in the past, journals have cc’d me on the emails sent to the authors and I have been able to see what the authors see. But there have been several instances where the emails I received with the editor’s decisions informed me only that the manuscripts were rejected or accepted with revisions, and did not include the reviews from me or the other reviewers. Were the reviews not included because they were redacted and the journal did not want me to know?
Second, regardless of past practices, it is evident that redaction of civil and respectful language of differing opinions is now accepted practice, at least by the APA.
Third, what is the standard for editors to decide what is insensitive language? Are editors protecting the fragile egos of authors? Are they protecting the professionalism of their journal brand? Or, are editors simply trying to head off the drearily predictable complaints from angry authors who had their papers rejected?
If anyone possesses the top-secret, classified APA Editor’s Handbook, and would like to shed light on the APA policy position, I think that would be enlightening for all of us who are incapable of higher-order cognitive skills (i.e., nuance), yet still value truth in science. If you are barred by an agreement to not share it with us, perhaps at least you could explain the policy on “tone and spirit” that I must have violated.
We Are In An Authoritarian Regime
The events I described reflect an authoritarian regime of journal editors. Editors have the power, nearly unlimited it seems, to decide what language is allowed and what ideas are permissible in peer reviews. It appears they can make these decisions without the consensus of reviewers, and secretly, without peer reviewers ever knowing what’s happening. Editors seems to have leapfrogged over the democratic step of building agreement in the field for what counts as insensitivity.
This authoritarian model is not the problem; I think it is fine, and efficient for conducting business, when the rulers are fair. The problem is when rulers favor one faction over another unfairly and there is no recourse.
I think it is useful to reflect back on how this situation seems similar to the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1960s. The Warren Court, as it was known because it was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, decided many landmark cases with a liberal reinterpretation of the Constitution and impacted the culture of the country, effectively presiding over a major shift in jurisprudence that would last for generations (Swindler, 1970). Some of these changes were needed, and some were widely seen as overstepping by the court to find rights in the Constitution that did not exist. Examples of school prayer and contraception drugs have been cited where activists should have tried to build consensus with the public and worked with state legislatures to find locally-suitable compromises instead of crafting a legal case that skipped the democratic process built into our Constitution and leapfrogged to a friendly Supreme Court to ram decisions down the throats of the entire country (Horowitz, 2018). History is still judging whether the revolution of the Warren Court was wise, or whether it went too far in some cases and acted as a fabricator of laws that was not theirs to create.
I am not suggesting a total remake of peer review is needed. Peer review is not broken.1 For example, I think massive changes proposed by the open science movement for post-publication peer review in public view would be much worse. Peer review by the self-selected mob is likely to give us only the “facts” the mob wants. New rules, committees, or appeals processes are not needed. We already know what evidence, fairness, and transparency look like.
I am suggesting that a revolution has occurred and we were not notified. What we need is a way to rein in deviant editors, such as those at Psychological Assessment. Those models already exist at most universities and businesses for handling problems of professional conduct. Start with a coffee chat, then move up rapidly to stiffer remedies as needed. I’m looking at you, APA. Consider this my official complaint.
REFERENCES
Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, S., Haidt, J., Jussim, L., & Tetlock, P. E. (2015). Political diversity will improve social psychological science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38:e130. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X14000430. Epub 2014 Jul 18. PMID: 25036715.
Horowitz, D. (2018). Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America. Humanix Books: West Palm Beach, FL.
Swindler, W. (1970). The Warren Court: Completion of a Constitutional Revolution. Vanderbilt Law Review, March 1970, 23(2):
“Peer review is not broken.” Lee commenting here. I disagree and explained why here. Indeed, I see no way to address the issues Michael has raised without thoroughly revamping how journals conduct peer review. But, hey, I do not have to agree with everything he, or any other guest poster, has written. On the substance of the essay here, though, the whole “redaction” business is nuts, but its not that surprising given the radical drift of academia.
Sadly, the events described here do not surprise me as this type of political correctness and pandering toward particular narratives in the guise of sensitive to protected group feelings has been growing in science for at least the last 20 years. It has become so bad that reviewers self censor for fear of being perceived as bigoted, and perhaps excluded from publishing in the future, or of causing unintended offense. I see this same thing going on in funding review panels as well.
The irony is that the editor's decision to modify a review in this fashion is actually a form of academic fraud and should be called out as such in the same way that modifying one's figures or dropping inconvenience data points constitutes academic misconduct. It appears the only solution to this bias is for reviewers to send the original text of the reviews to the authors...an action that negates any anonymity the review process holds. Personally, I have no problem with this. All reviews should have the reviewers names attached and be published with the article in question as a form of transparency. Keep the editors and journals honest since they clearly cannot be trusted.
The last point is the existence of an apparently secret APA manual being used to drive censorship. Secret rules are foolish as people inherently will violate rules they don't exist...but more importantly, the existence of secret rules is actually cover for individual judgement and malice as no one can then compare the rule to the action to see if the rule is sound and being applied fairly and uniformly. It sounds like this journal should be considered non-academic at this point and be publicly disregarded by the serious academic community. Those who continue to publish in it should similarly have such works excluded from citation as untrustworthy writings that have not undergone proper peer review.
Holy shit. I know that this kind of bias and authoritarianism pervade many fields, but this is the first time I've encountered unsanctioned redaction of peer reviews. Sadly, if this piece hadn't described the helpful editor as a woman, I would've guessed it. It seems that, when it comes to eliminating "harm" in the academy, a woman's work is never done. And I say this as an old, cranky woman.