The editor-in-chief of an academic journal said he had been fired for sharing a satirical article published by The Onion about people dying in Gaza facing backlash for not condemning Hamas.
Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics at the University of California, Berkeley, who until recently helmed the prominent open-source scientific journal eLife based in Cambridge, UK, tweeted Monday about his firing.
“I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of @eLife for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians,” Eisen posted on X.
On Oct. 13, nearly a week after Hamas terrorists launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel that killed some 1,400 people, Eisen shared The Onion article titled, “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”
In an accompanying post, Eisen wrote: “The Onion speaks with more courage, insight and moral clarity than the leaders of every academic institution put together. I wish there were a @TheOnion university.”
Eisen, who is Jewish, swiftly came under fire on social media for his remarks, but he stood his ground, reported Science Magazine.
“Every sane person on Earth is horrified and traumatized by what Hamas did and wants it to never happen again,” he wrote in a follow-up post. “All the more so as a Jew with Israeli family. But I am also horrified by the collective punishment already being meted out on Gazans, and the worse that is about to come.”
The outspoken academic also defended The Onion, arguing that the parody newspaper “is not making light of the situation. And nor am I. These articles are using satire to make a deadly serious point about this horrific tragedy.”
Eisen’s comments ignited a firestorm within the scientific community, with some fellow academics calling on him to step down from his role at eLife, which he has occupied since 2019.
Yaniv Erlich, an Israeli-American computer scientist and CEO of the company Eleven Therapeutics, called Eisen out for failing to voice his support of his colleagues in Israel.
“And now you dare to give us military advice from your privileged position of safety,” Erlich seethed. “What a moral bankruptcy.”
In response to the chorus of voices demanding Eisen’s resignation and calling for a boycott of eLife among researchers, a petition has been launched urging the publisher of the journal, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, not to reprimand the editor-in-chief for his public comments.
“Our stance is not based on the merits of Eisen’s views,” the petition read. “Rather, we believe that penalizing Eisen would establish a discouraging precedent for freedom of expression in academia.”
In the wake of Eisen’s firing, Lara Urban, a reviewing editor at eLife, tweeted that she was stepping down in protest.
“Mike’s dismissal for expressing his personal views sets a dangerous precedent for freedom of speech in our academic community, and it validates cyber-bullying as a successful and legitimate tool to get scientists with controversial opinions fired,” Urban wrote.
The eLife board of directors issued a statement Tuesday addressing its decision.
“Mike has been given clear feedback from the board that his approach to leadership, communication and social media has at key times been detrimental to the cohesion of the community we are trying to build and hence to eLife’s mission,” it read in part.
“It is against this background that a further incidence of this behavior has contributed to the board’s decision.”
The board thanked Eisen for his “creativity and vision,” and said that his position will be temporarily filled by two long-serving deputy editors until the end of 2024.
