An academic journal article about “feminism” and “dysconscious racism in STEM” never should have been published, according to two chemistry professors.
Professors John Landrum and Joseph Lichter questioned why the Journal of Chemical Education allowed a paper that vaguely touched on “white supremacy” to be published.
“Overlooking the obligation to provide clear definitions and valid evidence for such terms, especially ‘White Supremacy’ which was deemed sufficiently important to include in the abstract, is hard to rationalize for a journal that ascribes to upholding reasonable standards of scientific rigor,” the two Florida International University professors wrote.
They also called the paper a “deeply flawed work of scholarship.” Only two academic publications cited the paper – the Landrum (pictured, left) and Lichter (pictured, right) reply, and a subsequent response from the original author to these criticism.
The 2022 paper argued for “teaching science with a feminist framework.” “This article presents a pedagogical model for implementing a special topic class on science and feminism for chemistry students at East Carolina University,” Professor Michelle Reyes originally wrote. She teaches at ECU.
Landrum and Lichter criticized the proposed topics, saying they “have little to do with chemistry and more to do with medical or STEM-related historical events dealing with racial and gender inequality.”
Hellbound and Down 