SSP and C4DISC Statement on Anti-Asian Violence

The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), along with the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) stand with our global Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community. We recognize that racism, xenophobia, and discrimination are not new to the API community and that the community has seen a devastating increase in hate crimes around the world since the start of the pandemic, including the horrific murders of six Asian women in Atlanta last Tuesday. SSP and C4DISC mourns these lives and stands together as a community in condemning racism, violence, and any discriminatory acts.

SSP’s and C4DISC’s vision is a socially just community that welcomes, values, and celebrates all who seek to contribute to scholarly communications. This includes the global API community, who are historically important and statistically significant contributors and stakeholders to global research, knowledge, and advancement. The C4DISC mission is to work with organizations and individuals to build equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in our industry, which includes fighting against anti-API discrimination and crimes.

While it didn’t take one specific act of violence for us to say this, we would like to repeat and reaffirm our commitments, as stated in the Joint Statement of Principles, and to continue our efforts to proactively work to achieve our vision, including through the creation and dissemination of the Toolkits for Equity. 

We are committed to:

• Eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• Creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• Promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• Raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• Supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

Action: To our staff, colleagues, and members: please join us in reaffirming these commitments and taking action — both at the personal and the organizational level — to combat hate, racism, and violence towards the API community. We direct our Coalition to these resources created by HAAPI ERG | FLEXPORT, which includes educational content, organizations to donate to, allyship and volunteer recommendations, and more.

To Asian and Pacific Islander members of our community: SSP and C4DISC stands with you today, tomorrow, and always.