Latest news with #Fiorillo
Indian Express
6 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Harvard publisher cancels journal issue on Palestine, cites ‘a number of complex issues'
In the wake of the standoff between United States administration and Harvard University, the Harvard Education Publishing Group, a prestigious American education journal's publisher, last month, abruptly canceled the release of a special issue titled, 'education and Palestine,' The Guardian reported. The special issue, which was set to be published this summer was almost ready, as contracts with most authors were finalized and articles were edited, the report noted. On June 9, in an email to the issue's contributors, the publisher cited 'a number of complex issues', taking authors and editors by surprise, The Guardian learnt. This remarkable move comes amid an escalation of United States' confrontation with Harvard University, where it has warned that the elite institution could lose its accreditation over allegations related to 'antisemitism' on campus. Officials have accused elite universities in the US of fostering leftist ideologies and failing to protect Jewish students amid brewing tensions on campus. What did the special issue entail? The special issue of the journal covered topics such as the annihilation of Gaza's schools to the challenges of teaching about Israel and Palestine in the US. The issue was intended to promote 'scholarly conversation on education and Palestine amid repression, occupation, and genocide,' as per internal emails accessed by The Guardian. It included research articles, essays and other writings on topics ranging from education in Israel-Palestine and among the Palestinian diaspora, to academic freedom in the US. The journal articles explored the evolution of the concept of 'scholasticide', a term describing the systematic annihilation of education, first coined during Israel's 2008 invasion of Gaza; the 'ethical and educational responsibilities' of English language teachers in the West Bank; and the impact of 'crackdowns on dissent' on teaching about Palestine in US higher education institutions, according to finalized abstracts of the articles shared with The Guardian. What did the cancellation email state? The email sent to the body of authors and editors, announcing the cancellation of the issue, did not exactly cite 'antisemitism' as its reason. The executive director of the publishing group, Jessica Fiorillo, wrote that the decision stemmed from an 'inadequate review process' and the need for 'considerable copy editing'. Intimating them that the issue was being pulled altogether, Fiorillo claimed the manuscripts were 'unready for publication', in part due to a copy editor's resignation. She also cited an unspecified 'failure to adhere to an adequate review process', a 'lack of internal alignment' between the authors, editors and the publisher, and 'the lack of a clear and expedient path forward to resolving the myriad issues at play'. 'This difficult situation is exacerbated by very significant lack of agreement about the path forward, including and especially whether to publish such a special issue at this time,' she wrote in her email, as seen by The Guardian. She added that the cancellation was not 'due to censorship of a particular viewpoint nor does it connect to matters of academic freedom'. Chronology of the cancellation The speculations began when Rabea Eghbariah, a Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, and the writer of the afterword for the special issue, requested to amend his contract with the Harvard Educational Review (HER) to add a clause seeking to safeguard his academic freedom, which was later declined by the journal. Days later, the journal's editorial board wrote to the authors, citing an 'increasingly challenging climate' and asking for their availability for a meeting, which never ended up happening, as per The Guardian report. However, this was not the first time the publisher tried to pressurise the journal editors. In January this year, the editors were told that an 'institutional review' of the manuscripts would be required. Moreover, in February, the publisher attempted to alter the back cover of the spring issue promoting some of the forthcoming articles. As per an editor quoted by The Guardian, the publisher acknowledged that it was seeking a 'risk assessment' legal review by Harvard's counsel out of fear the issue's publication would prompt 'antisemitism' claims, which authors and editor referred to as an 'unprecedented' at that stage of publication. 'This sends a dangerous message to scholars globally: that academic publishing contracts are conditional, revocable, and subject to external political calculations,' they wrote in a letter to the journal's editorial board and publisher in the month of May. However, less than a month later, the special issue was pulled out entirely. Reacting to the move, one of the editors of the HER, said that the censorship of the issue is 'exactly how authoritarianism grows'. Next steps Many scholars have come to refer to the incident as the 'Palestine exception' to academic freedom. The authors are now in talks with other journals and are hopeful their pieces can be published as planned. The Guardian's interviewees, including authors and journal's editor, all expressed fear that the incident would deter other scholars from pursuing work on Palestine. Other steps taken by Trump administration against Harvard Harvard has been facing a brutal battle with the Trump administration, after it targeted the Ivy League University for failing to keep Jewish students safe and allowing antisemitism to flourish. Soon after university protests against Israel's war in Gaza gained traction, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sought information on various foreign national visa holders who have been a part of 'illegal and violent' activities within the campus. Eventually, the US Secretary of Homeland Security ordered the DHS to revoke Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification even after receiving a detailed list with the number and information of enrolled foreign students. In a letter to the university, the Secretary wrote that current students would need to transfer or risk losing their legal status. The University has so far managed to sue the administration on the matter, with Judge Burroughs issuing a ruling against Trump's June 4 proclamation, where he had said that any foreign national who enrolled at the university would be banned from entering the US. Harvard also sued the Trump administration in April this year against the funds freeze, saying the administration was using 'leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard'. The New York Times reported about Harvard receiving seven stop-work orders for research awards between April 14 and May 6, after which 950 such orders totalling $2.4 billion were passed. Most recently, the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced that they had notified Harvard's accrediting agency that the university had potentially violated federal law by failing to address claims of harassment against Jewish students. Losing accreditation would have severe consequences, including making Harvard students ineligible for federal financial aid.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Two-fingered dinosaur discovered in Mongolia with help of N.M. researcher
What has two fingers per hand and just got discovered by an international research team in Mongolia? This guy: Duonychus tsogtbaatari. A new species of therizinosaurus has been discovered in Mongolia. Paleontologist Anthony Fiorillo, the executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, was part of the research team. The specimen was discovered at a construction site in a small village near the Chinese border. Spine segments, a humerus and most significantly, two arms, were uncovered. 'This discovery shows us how much more there is to be discovered, that there is so much more biodiversity out there to be found in the fossil record,' Fiorillo said. 'I can't wait for the next person to find the next cool thing.' It was the two preserved arms that indicated the specimen was the member of an undiscovered species of therizinosaurus. Each arm has two fingers. 'On both arms, instead of the more typical three fingers, this one has two fingers,' Fiorillo said. 'That in itself is very unique within this group of dinosaurs called therizinosaurus.' Duonychus tsogtbaatari is believed to have lived 90 million years ago, weighing in at almost 600 pounds and standing several meters tall. Therazinosaurus in general had an 'ungainly' body plan, Fiorillo said. 'They have long, longish necks, longish tails, a potbelly, and then these wickedly developed claws,' Fiorillo said. 'Many therizinosaurs had very long, somewhat straight claws.' Those lethal claws were fictionalized in Jurassic World: Dominion, when a toothy rival is shish-kebabed on a therizinosaur's three-fingered hands. The specimen discovered in Mongolia, however, has sharply curved, sloth-like claws. When Duonychus tsogtbaatari lived, in what is now the Gobi Desert, it would have looked significantly different. Although there are gaps in the fossil plant record in the Gobi, it was likely a warmer and more humid climate. The authors of the paper posit the scythe-like claws were used to hook and bring vegetation to the dinosaur's mouth. Duonychus tsogtbaatari largely ate plants. The two-fingered arm raises questions as well. Several strains of theropods, a group of bipedal dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus rex, independently evolved to have fewer fingers on each arm. Why? That remains to be seen, Fiorillo said. 'Beyond a broad statement that there's something driving evolution for, if you will, an increased efficiency of digit reduction, what you really like about a study is when it raises additional questions,' Fiorillo said. 'That is certainly one of the questions: Why is this going on, and why is it happening across multiple groups? And we don't have a real good answer for that yet.' The lead author, Hokkaido University paleontologist Yoshitsugi Kobayashi, an expert in Mongolian dinosaurs, was a student of Fiorillo's. Another author on the paper, Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig with the University of North Carolina and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, was Kobayashi's student. Duonychus tsogtbaatari is named after his father. But that's not the only link between the Land of Enchantment and the new species. Fragmented fossils of therizinosaurs have been found in the Zuni Basin near the New Mexico/Arizona border. 'It's reasonable to suspect there may be more than one kind found here,' Fiorillo said. 'The great thing about paleontology is you realize how the world is connected.'
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NM paleontologist on team researching new dinosaur species
Mar. 27—More than 90 million years ago, a creature with a long neck and two claw-baring fingers roamed the Earth, grabbing plants and sinking its sharp, small leaf-shaped teeth into the greenery hanging from trees. This new species of dinosaur was found in 2012 by an international research team that included New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Executive Director Anthony Fiorillo. The scientists published a research paper on the Duonychus tsogtbaatari this week in the scientific journal iScience. "This work not only opens up new possibilities for research on a little-understood family of dinosaurs," Fiorillo said in a news release, "but it also showcases how international partnerships play a key role in our museum's research." The discovery started in southern Mongolia when a construction crew noticed something strange while putting down water pipelines. When they realized what was beneath the ground wasn't rock, but large bones, the crew called authorities at the Institute of Paleontology at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in Ulaanbaatar — the capitol of Mongolia. The claw of the dinosaur was fully intact and completely fossilized, something that does not commonly occur, Fiorillo said in an interview. The discovery also suggests that dinosaurs seemed to generally evolve toward a reduction of digits. "The fact that we have a left and right hand when we recognized that there were only two fingers on each hand, that's when the light bulb went on, it's like, wow, this is not supposed to be the case," Fiorillo said. "That's what started us to get really excited by what we had." The newly discovered dinosaur is believed to have been a herbivore or omnivore and part of a group of theropod dinosaurs that lived in central and eastern Asia and western North America, including New Mexico. "In New Mexico, there are remains of this group of dinosaurs," Fiorillo said. "Not specifically duonychus, but therizinosaurus in general have been found here. This dinosaur does actually shed some light on dinosaurs within our own state." Fiorillo was selected to be part of the research team by his former student — Yoshitsugu Kobayashi — who Fiorillo collaborated with to release the research paper titled "Didactyl therizinosaur with a preserved keratinous claw from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia," after unveiling the new dinosaur species. "Now that we have this paper, we have to figure out what we want to do next," he said. "We have to decide if we want to investigate this rock unit further and see if we can find other examples of this animal. We also need to get this knowledge out to the public and frame it in the context of what it means for New Mexico."
