An academic journal made a mathematician's paper disappear after activist scholars complained that its findings were politically incorrect:
https://reason.com/blog/2018/09/10/math-paper-censorship-quillette-pc-left
What's more they made it impossible for him to publish it anywhere else:
"Some time later, an editor at another publication, the New York Journal of Mathematics, wrote to Hill and offered to publish the paper. Hill accepted, and the article was published. But then:
"Three days later, however, the paper had vanished. And a few days after that, a completely different paper by different authors appeared at exactly the same page of the same volume (NYJM Volume 23, p 1641+) where mine had once been. As it turned out, Amie Wilkinson is married to Benson Farb, a member of the NYJM editorial board. Upon discovering that the journal had published my paper, Professor Farb had written a furious email to [NYJM Editor-in-Chief Mark Steinberger] demanding that it be deleted at once. …
Unaware of any of this, I wrote to Steinberger on November 14, to find out what had happened. I pointed out that if the deletion were permanent, it would leave me in an impossible position. I would not be able to republish anywhere else because I would be unable to sign a copyright form declaring that it had not already been published elsewhere. Steinberger replied later that day. Half his board, he explained unhappily, had told him that unless he pulled the article, they would all resign and "harass the journal" he had founded 25 years earlier "until it died." Faced with the loss of his own scientific legacy, he had capitulated. "A publication in a dead journal," he offered, "wouldn't help you."""
"They can burn books these days without producing any smoke."
https://twitter.com/memcculloch/status/1020015348819677184
- memcculloch
