Retractions Have Become Politicized

Journal retractions are a necessary part of the scientific process. They allow the scientific community both to correct honest mistakes and to deal with misconduct and even fraud. But in recent years, retractions have also become an ideological tool used to remove papers that are politically unpalatable, sometimes at the behest of internet mobs in which academics themselves participate. Examples include a 2020 paper that found junior women academics don’t necessarily benefit from senior women mentors more than they do from mentors who are men; a 2020 paper that argued diversity, equity, and inclusion rubrics are not helpful for medical admissions; and a 2023 survey study considering the controversial topic of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), a proposed but so far unofficial psychological condition involving the sudden onset of gender dysphoria during adolescence. Each of these papers generated serious controversy, which seems to have contributed more to their retractions than did any errors in the papers themselves.

All of this inspired Nick Brown, a psychologist affiliated with Linnaeus University, in Sweden, and myself to plan a special issue on retractions for the journal Current Psychology, where I was an associate editor. I invited J. Michael Bailey, a Northwestern University psychologist and co-author of the retracted ROGD paper, to submit an article describing his experiences with Springer, the publisher ultimately responsible for the decision to retract. Because the very existence of ROGD — which Bailey’s study supported — is highly controversial, the article attracted a considerable amount of heat. Trans activists often consider ROGD’s implication that some cases of trans identification may be socially transmitted rather than genuine to be rooted in bigotry.

The ostensible reason for the retraction was irregularities in the informed-consent materials provided to participants. The original creator of the survey on which the article was based was not an academic; she distributed the survey without the traditional informed-consent form academics are trained to use. Bailey has argued that it was obvious to the participants that the survey would be published in some form. He wrote to Springer to observe that many other studies published in their journals suffer from similar issues around informed consent — as of this writing none appear to have been emended with retraction notices or other expressions of concern. There is certainly the appearance that Springer exploited a technicality to cave to an online pressure mob.

Bailey’s article raised serious points about the use of retractions, the role of mob outrage, and so on. It underwent the usual peer-review process, in which it obtained two positive and one critical review. It was accepted by myself and Nick, and then by the editor of Current Psychology, F. Richard (Ric) Ferraro.

It then went to the journal’s executive publisher, a Springer employee. Springer, as it happens, is the publisher both for the journal in which Bailey’s original retracted article was published, Archives of Sexual Behavior, as well as for Current Psychology. The executive publisher sat on the article for a few months, which seemed rather odd, but eventually she moved it along. The only request was that it be reclassified as a “Commentary” rather than an “Article.” Bailey, Ferraro, and I all agreed to this.

At this juncture everything seemed fine. I was proud of Springer for publishing a piece that criticized their own process and advanced an important discussion on retractions. I thought this cast Springer in a very positive light.

Alas, first there is laughter; then there are tears. On August 29, I awoke to learn that Springer had rescinded the acceptance of Bailey’s commentary. Neither I nor Nick had received any warning. I learned about this roughly the same time as Bailey did. The ostensible reason: “What you have submitted appears to be an opinion piece, rather than an original research article and therefore not suitable for publication. We have therefore rescinded the accept decision.”

We had indeed agreed to change the article’s label from “Article” to “Commentary,” on the executive publisher’s request. Why were we now being punished for that? In any event, commentary and opinion pieces are very common in psychology journals.

So, this is a dodge. In the absence of some smoking-gun memo, can we definitively say that Springer make an obviously biased mistake in retracting one article (citing a rule they apparently don’t apply to other articles), then quashed a second article calling them out? No. But the circumstantial evidence is clear. It requires considerable suspension of belief to believe Springer was just following rules.

Of course, some people may feel that it’s good that Springer killed two controversial articles on ROGD. That’s fine, but at least make that case. We can dispense with the fiction that these were only procedural decisions.

Springer is a publishing house, not a scientific organization. Increasingly, I wonder how wise it is to give non-science businesses so much potential de facto censorship control over scientific articles that can be retracted and memory-holed whenever it appears to be convenient for the business to do so. These organizations respond to the bottom line, not the search for truth.

The question is: What is the alternative model?

I don’t have a magic solution, although increasingly I think perhaps the answer is for scholars to create online journals that they curate themselves. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some models of this, for instance the Journal of Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences and the Journal of Mass Violence Research. The challenges are twofold: First, such journals lack the funding support enjoyed by a big publisher and, second, they have difficulty in getting attention, especially if they aren’t indexed in search engines.

In any event, scholar-led journals would only offer a partial fix. That’s because scholars are not innocent when it comes to moral crusades. One need only watch the disaster that unfolded when critiques published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (PoPS) were falsely alleged to be racist (the critiqued psychologist was Black; his critics were white). A mob ensued on Twitter and, over the course of a single weekend, the journal’s editor was fired by the leadership of the Association for Psychological Science, which publishes PoPS. Again, procedural issues were selectively invoked to advance political or moral causes.

Current Psychology has continued to defend their decision, which is their right to do. For my part, I’ve decided to resign from my role as associate editor for the journal. I can’t be part of something I perceive to be censorial.