The science blogosphere saw the realities of sexism and possible racism last week after biologist and blogger Dr. Danielle N. Lee refused to freelance for Biology Online without pay.
Going by the blogging alias DNLee while holding a column for Scientific American entitled "The Urban Scientist" for over two years, Lee specializes in science's engagement with women and people of color. Thursday Lee received an email from someone by the name of Ofek who represented himself as an editor at blog platform and aggregator partner site with SciAm, Biology-Online.org. After some back-and-forth Q&A regarding contributing work for the site, Lee politely refused when told her work would not receive compensation.
"Thank you very much for your reply," Lee wrote in the email. " But I will have to decline your offer. Have a great day."
The editor's response was less than professional.
"Because you don't pay for blog entries," the editor asked. "Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?"
Lee would of course take a screen shot of the email responses and blog about her experience on Scientific American. Though fellow science writers were quick to show support through the Twitter hashtag #standingwithDNLee, her blogging home wasn't as understanding and deleted her post.
Scientific American Editor-in-Chief and Senior VP Mariette DiChristina would Tweet the publication's reason for the post's removal.
Re blog inquiry: @sciam is a publication for discovering science. The post was not appropriate for this area & was therefore removed.
— Mariette DiChristina (@mdichristina) October 12, 2013
Making things more interesting was Lee’s YouTube response.
Of course, Scientific American would receive a slew of messages from readers angered by the site's treatment of Lee. DiChristina would issue a statement to BuzzFeed defending the post's removal.
"I'd like to elaborate on the original brief statement on Twitter that this blog fell outside Scientific American's mission to communicate science. While we interpret that mission with a lot of latitude, Dr. Lee's post went beyond and verged into the personal, and that's why it was taken down. Dr. Lee's post is out extensively in the blogosphere, which is appropriate. Dr. Lee is a valued member of the Scientific American blog network. In a related matter, Biology Online has an ad network relationship, and not an editorial one. Obviously, Scientific American does not want to be associated with activities that are detrimental to the productive communication of science. We are pursuing next steps."
Sunday afternoon, Scientific American posted a statement from DiChristina explaining Lee's post had to be taken down for "legal reasons" as the publication couldn't verify the accuracy of the post but assured that it takes "seriously the issues that are faced by women in science and women of color in science."
Monday morning, Alan Weisleder, partner at Keebali.com who owns Biology-Online told BuzzFeed that Ofek was fired. Weisleder also shared an email apology sent to Lee.
