[ATTW-L] [External] Ethical Question about TC Peer Review

Thu Jan 4 16:14:25 UTC 2024

Mike,

This is a very interesting question and I find myself looking up at it from
a different perspective. While I have not yet been on the tenure earning
track I still want to review and publish for many reasons. Two of those
reasons that stand out to me at this moment are the desire to contribute to
the body of knowledge of the field and the waning hope that, with
publications, one day I too will find a TT position.

As for the former, I am persuaded that writing and reviewing as a service
to the field is not only a duty but also an expression of my identity as an
academic. In that practice I have also wondered how so few people can
control the flow of information that contributes to knowledge for so many
which brings me to my point. I have not been able to determine in many
cases when resistance through subversion is anarchist and machiavellian or
when it is simply a marxist or feminist duty to dismantle the structures of
power engendering a new normal. I guess I have to weigh my own motivations
carefully in moments like those to see if the subversive actions are in the
service of self and personal views or if they would be an effective tool in
service of a larger ideology.  Which brings me to the latter point.

If I help to subvert and destroy the ladder I hope to climb, is there
another road to my desired destination? Looking around at the assault on
tenure, post tenure review, and the wholesale deletion or usurpation of
entire programs, departments, and universities (thinking of Wyoming, WVU,
Florida, Harvard, and now Youngstown State among other cases)  that cause
trouble for those in positions of political power, tearing down the
structures that exist now may be a moot point. It hardly seems like a time
that we should work to weaken any academic structure in any way. Unless we
have a better way already prepared to take over when the old system--and
its affordances and limitations--are gone, why would we subvert the things
that are supposed to protect us, our rights and academic integrity? I think
of the recent CWPA shift toward a more public position of antiracism and
the concerted efforts that brought about that introspection, leading to
positive change, and I compare that to one person protesting. I have often
found myself in the position of the only voice of opposition and as such
have had to do a fair bit of soul searching. Sometimes I continue the
protest and try to gain support or raise awareness, sometimes I have had to
fall back and regroup employing new strategies to continue to work toward
change because sometimes there is a better way. But other times, I have
discovered that the thing I was doing was a losing proposition in a failed
cause and have had to abandon it.

Obviously I can't say do X and everything is fine, but I can share what my
NTT experience has taught me. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves questions
we don't like but that is only because no one else has those answers for
our contexts. Perhaps accountability is covered within the reviewer's
accountability to the editor. Perhaps we need more people of integrity to
step up to take on editorial roles. Perhaps we need more of those same
people to take on Department Chair positions and Deanships so they can help
create space in the labor demands of the typical university to allow the
various academic disciplines exercise their academic freedom and strengthen
their own integrity through self regulation and collective inquiry. Perhaps
there is another, *more better* solution I am not privy to. Perhaps none of
this makes sense to anyone but me. But that might just be my perspective
from the NTT space I occupy, as I peer in and see the ways that publishing,
freedom, status, security, politics, and labor are inextricably
interconnected in that one act of subverting the double blind peer review
architecture. The question is raised for me: Is double blind peer review a
liberating structure or a hegemonic assemblage?

Even if these thoughts offer you no assistance, I want to thank you for the
opportunity to think about this out loud with you.
Best,

*Joseph W. Robertshaw, Ph.D. (he/him)*

*Lecturer, The University of Alabama in Huntsville*

*Room 271 Morton Hall*

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 11:56 AM Duncan, Michael <duncanm at uhd.edu> wrote:

>
>
> I have an ethical question about TC peer review for this listserv.
>
>
>
> I recently completed a peer review for a journal in the TC orbit, to
> remain unnamed. As usual, I requested that my name be included in the
> review. I have done this for every peer review I’ve written since 2015.
> It’s an ethical issue that I’ve written about twice, once in the Chronicle
> and another in a journal article. I don’t feel comfortable hiding behind
> anonymity. I’ve never had an editor object in the past, though it’s
> possible that some editor has left my name off a review without telling me.
> But this is the first time that I know for certain that it’s happened, and
> without the editor asking me if it was ok. I received a copy of the peer
> reviews after the publication decision, plus an email asking me not to sign
> reviews. My response to the editor was to note my name was removed without
> consent, that I would decline to review further for the journal, and if I
> had been asked to remove my name prior to it being sent out, I would have
> withdrawn the entire review. The editor made a perfunctory apology but did
> nothing otherwise.
>
>
>
> The milk is spilled, yes, but here’s the ethical question. I anticipated
> something like this happening some years ago, but not the exact scenario. I
> started to leave a unique phrase in my peer reviews, different each time.
> If the text of the peer review itself constitutes a kind of private key,
> the phrase is a public key that would allow anyone with access to the peer
> review to know who I am, without me knowing who they are. For example, if I
> announced somewhere that the public key for a recent peer review was
> “timey-wimey epistemological handwringing,” if you saw that in a peer
> review that you’d received, you’d know I’d wrote it (please note that is
> not the actual key and exists solely for dramatic purposes).
>
>
>
> So, would it be ethical for me to publish that phrase online? On the
> negative side, it would violate double blind (assuming the author received
> the key and figured it out, of course). And, of course, peer-reviewed
> journals are granted by their respective fields, at least informally,
> rather broad discretionary powers over their editorial processes with which
> meddling is generally frowned upon – although, I feel that balance of power
> tends to favor those that already have power, which is why I sign, so
> people can know what ratfink wrote that review. On the positive side, the
> review is completed as actually written, given that I expressly wrote the
> review with the understanding it would be single-blind. I can be held
> accountable for any incompetence, the editor’s misstep is answered in kind,
> and perhaps the author could confirm, at least, that their peer reviews was
> not written by an enterprising chatbot. Personal ethics vs. professional
> ethics? Virtue vs. duty?
>
>
>
> My current thinking is that the benefits of correcting a wrong outweigh
> the sidestepping of a custom. However, it could be argued that I have
> already corrected the wrong by walking away from the journal. I am
> amendable.
>
>
>
> Mike Duncan, Ph.D. (he/his/him)
>
> Professor of English
>
> University of Houston-Downtown
>
> Managing Editor, *Technical Communication & Social Justice*
>
>
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