America does the right thing

At first you might think it a negative that the US Supreme Court refused to hear five gay marriage cases this term.

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from five states looking to prohibit gay marriage, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in those states and likely others — but also leaving the issue unresolved nationally.

The justices rejected appeals from Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. The court’s order immediately ends delays on gay marriage in those states.

Couples in six other states — Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming — also should be able to get married in short order. Those states would be bound by the same appellate rulings that were put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s review. That would make same-sex marriage legal in 30 states and the District of Columbia.

So they haven’t “finished the job”. So what. The nationwide trend on this is clear and we will have only the smallest bumps ahead as more lower courts find that what SCOTUS did in the Federal decisions applies in their jurisdictions as well. More than half the population now lives in a jurisdiction that permits same-sex marriage. Or as more States decide to legalize same-sex marriage and nobody complains (at the legal level).

This is what happened with Loving v. Virginia too. Perhaps Roe v. Wade as well?

SCOTUS waiting for tides to turn in a particular direction within the country has precedent. And today, they announced they will not try to move that tide, they will watch it. And that is a good thing.

Today was a win for civil rights and I’m going to celebrate it as such.

Something is funny at Science Magazine

Since many of you are AAAS members, as am I, I think you might be interested in an open letter blogged by Michael Balter, who identifies himself as “a Contributing Correspondent for Science and Adjunct Professor of Journalism at New York University“.

I have been writing continuously for Science for the past 24 years. I have been on the masthead of the journal for the past 21 years, serving in a variety of capacities ranging from staff writer to Contributing Correspondent (my current title.) I also spent 10 years as Science’s de facto Paris bureau chief. Thus it is particularly painful and sad for me to tell you that I will be taking a three-month leave of absence in protest of recent events at Science and within its publishing organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

sounds serious.

What’s up?

Yet in the case of the four women dismissed last month, no such explanation was made, nor even a formal announcement that they were gone. Instead, on September 25, Covey wrote a short email to Science staff telling us who the new contacts were for magazine makeup and magazine layout. No mention whatsoever was made of our terminated colleagues. As one fellow colleague expressed it to me: “Brr.”

Four staff dismissals that he blames on a newcomer to the organization.

I think that this collegial atmosphere continued to dominate until earlier this year, when the changes that we are currently living through began in earnest. Rob Covey came on board at AAAS in September 2013, and at first many of us thought that he was serving mostly in an advisory capacity; after all, he had a reputation for helping media outlets achieve their design and digital goals, a role he had played at National Geographic, Discovery Communications, and elsewhere. I count myself among those who were happy about many of the changes he brought about, including the redesign of the magazine, the ramping up of our multimedia presence, etc. But somewhere along the way Covey began to take on more power and more authority for personnel decisions, an evolution that has generated increasing consternation among the staff in all of Science’s departments.

New broom sweeps?

(In addition, according to all the information I have been able to gather about it, Covey was responsible for one of the most embarrassing recent episodes at Science, the July 11, 2014 cover of the special AIDS issue. This cover, for which Science has been widely excoriated, featured the bare legs [and no faces] of transgender sex workers in Jakarta, which many saw as a crass objectification and exploitation of these vulnerable individuals. Marcia McNutt was forced to publicly apologize for this cover, although she partly defended it as the result of “discussion by a large group.” In fact, my understanding, based on sources I consider reliable, is that a number of members of Science’s staff urged Covey not to use the cover, to no avail.)

Remember this little oopsie?

This will be interesting to watch, particularly if we hear more about the July 11 cover and any possible role that the individuals Balter references in this statement, “The recent dismissal of four women in our art and production departments“, had in the opposition or approval argument.