The “March for Science” is being ripped apart by organizers who want to make gender and racial diversity the center of a march initially formed to push back against the Trump administration’s allegedly “anti-science” stance.
Tensions over the march’s stance on diversity has caused some organizers to quit and many scientists to pledge not to attend as the focus shifts from science to overtly left-wing causes, according to an in-depth report by STAT.
In fact, march organizers tweeted out a statement on how they valued diversity and equity after STAT published its report. It included a lengthy comment from Rachael Holloway, who’s in charge of diversity for the march.
The “March for Science” started to gain traction in January, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes on Facebook. Major environmentalist and activist groups have backed the march, which is planned for Earth Day in Washington, D.C., but sister marches are planned in other cities as well.
But as support for the march grew, so did concerns over its core message.
University of Maine biologist Jacquelyn Gill recently left the march’s organizing committee over “leaders’ resistance to aggressively addressing inequalities — including race and gender,” STAT reported.
“We were really in this position where, because the march failed to actively address those structural inequalities within its own organization and then to effectively communicate those values outward, we carried those inequalities forward,” Gill told STAT. “Some of these problems stem from the march leadership failing early on in its messaging.”