A prominent open-access science journal, eLife, has fired editor-in-chief Michael Eisen in the wake of a dispute over his social-media posts.
On 23 October, Eisen, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote on the social-media platform X (formerly Twitter): “I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of @eLife for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.” The article on the satirical website The Onion, posted on 13 October, was entitled: ‘Dying Gazans criticized for not using last words to condemn Hamas’. Eisen, who is Jewish, posted a link on X, accompanied by the word “Bingo”.
A day after Eisen was fired, eLife’s board of directors issued a statement indicating that he had been dismissed because of broader issues: “his approach to leadership, communication and social media has at key times been detrimental to the cohesion of the community we are trying to build and hence to eLife’s mission”. eLife did not respond to Nature’s request for further comment.
An open letter protesting against Eisen’s dismissal raises concerns about academic freedom, and about researchers’ perception of whether it is safe to express pro-Palestinian sentiments regarding the Israel–Hamas war. It has so far been signed by more than 1,300 people. Of those, more than 400 are anonymous, which “in itself speaks volumes”, the letter says. The decision has spurred an exodus of many eLife editors, and Federico Pelisch, a biologist at the University of Dundee, UK, has stepped down from the journal’s board, in protest at the firing.
“People can’t be cancelled for expressing political views that are unpopular,” says Josh Dubnau, a geneticist at Stony Brook University in New York who helped to initiate the protest letter. “If eLife wants to decide that ‘this guy has a personality that isn’t representing us well’, they have that right. But they did it in the context of this moment. I think that’s the issue.”
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