Dr. Jacquelyn GillVerified account

I didn't make a big deal at the time, as I had colleagues still working hard to right the ship and didn't want to throw them under a bus.

As we're less than a week away from the #sciencemarch, and a number of women (and several women of color) just left, I wanted to reflect.

My involvement with #ScienceMarch started when #usofscience trended last inauguration. @LadyNaturalist and I tweeted about a science march.

Several of us started chatting on Twitter, and were sporting approached by another group who said, "let's join forces." We said, "great!"

That other group became the leadership of the #ScienceMarch. Many of us struggled to find footing as the organization exploded overnight.

As someone with organizing experience, I urged for clear communication and transparent decision-making. Lots of folks were new at this.

Many of us were outspoken about the need to have diversity, inclusion, and accessibility built into the structure from day one.

We were hopeful that #sciencemarch would learn from the mistakes the #WomensMarch had made, and do better. We had the expertise to do it.

Initial issues with #ScienceMarch's messaging, organization, and communication could be attributed to being a new org of volunteers.

But as time went by, I increasingly felt that there were serious dysfunctions: micromanaging, lack of transparency, hostility to diversity.

I want to be clear that I am speaking for myself, though many others shared these concerns. I just don't want to claim to speak for others.

Despite assurances to the contrary, diversity and inclusion work was increasingly compartmentalized, and decisions made without our input.

Several in leadership positions said, in effect, "diversity is a distraction from the real work of the march. We're trying to save science."

Those of us working on the diversity team weren't asking for diversity issues to supplant the march's goals, but to be included at all.

We fought for weeks to be involved with the M4S Twitter account, and to remove individuals who were openly hostile to diversity issues.

It felt like internal loyalty to #ScienceMarch was more important than getting it right. Constructive criticism was portrayed as attacks.

Often, work that women (especially WOC) did (much of it assigned!) was ignored until a white man suggested it, or redone.

We had so much incredible expertise in science communication, accessibility, and organizing in the M4S team that routinely went ignored.

Meanwhile, the climate could be hostile for women, and women of color especially, on M4S team Slack channels.

I don't want to get bogged down in a laundry list, but I truly think the #ScienceMarch suffered from all the New Organization mistakes.

Poor communication, concentrated power, lack of team agency and poor transparency exacerbated the ongoing issues with diversity.

My team asked the #ScienceMarch leadership in Feb. to make an internal statement that diversity and inclusion were core values. They didn't.

Overall, this had the effect of weakening the March and its goals by alienating those who stand to lose the most in the War on Science.

#ScienceMarch also represents a tragic lost opportunity to do better than science's racist, sexist, ableist, colonialist, oppressive past.

I am heartbroken that #ScienceMarch has been a megaphone broadcasting that science is not for everyone. Our community did wrong here.

Because #ScienceMarch organizers aside, the M4S spaces on Twitter and Facebook have been hostile and abusive to women, POC, PWD, immigrants.

As a scientist, I believe we need a #ScienceMarch. But I want no part of a movement that doesn't recognize its own flaws, or its promise.

There are satellite marches that are doing the hard work that M4S dropped. I hear good things about @ScienceMarchSTL and @Mrch4ScienceBOS.

If any of my #ScienceMarch cohort want to speak out, I'm happy to amplify you. I just don't want to name-check you out of the blue.

I truly believe that science must be for everyone to thrive. It's also just the right thing to do. Until we get there: constant vigilance.