The CHE has useful background information on the Hypatia matter.

Miriam Solomon, a professor and chair of the philosophy department at Temple University and president of the Board of Directors, said the journal’s publisher, John Wiley & Sons, had brought in the Committee on Publication Ethics, an outside group that consults with editors and publishers of academic journals, to review the situation. The main question: Was the apology issued by the associate editors appropriate?

Last week the committee, known as COPE, produced a report that found the apology inappropriate, Ms. Solomon said. Even after the report’s findings were presented to the journal’s editors, the associate editors did not acknowledge any mistake in issuing the apology, and the board had to “take other measures,” she said. As a result, the board temporarily suspended the authority of the 10-member Associate Editorial Board.

They sound kind of Trump-like. WE DID NOTHING WRONG SHUT UP.

The associate editors “felt that they didn’t see that the COPE report had identified anything wrong with how they conducted themselves, whereas we thought they were pretty clear that you just don’t run off making public statements in your capacity as associate editors,” Ms. Anderson said.

The associate editors should now come to terms with the consequences of undermining the board’s power, she said.

And of doing their level best to destroy a colleague for no good reason – let’s not omit that little detail.

Both board members acknowledged that Hypatia’s governing structure is complex. Still, the board is ultimately in charge of delivering the journal to the publisher and maintaining its finances, Ms. Solomon said. After the May controversy, journal submissions went down, and reviewers said they did not want to review articles if the associate editors might issue statements as they did concerning the controversy over Ms. Tuvel’s article.

Yep. They were all thinking, “Jeez, what if I put a foot wrong, will they tear me to shreds the same way? Better not risk it.” And they were right, too.