I do not think so. I am working in Open Access and I need people qualified for this. Selecting appropriate staff is a normal process.

“But it is also just bad leadership: there are a lot of people who are very sympathetic to the arguments against for-profit publishing, but who also don’t agree with blacklisting. Why would you want to alienate them all? Why can’t people support what you’re doing with open access publishing without having to blacklist potential hires?“

I do not require that others act this way. I just wrote about things I do.

“Why is the answer to everything in linguistics to just not hire anyone who disagrees?”

This is a claim that may reflect a tendency in linguistics but does not apply to me. I hired many people working in frameworks I did not work in. The criterion for me is correct way of argumentation and intellectual honesty.

“Anyone can make arguments like you’re making, and they are each as nonsensical as the next – here’s one: scholars who promote open access in linguistics are more likely to blacklist other scholars, which leads to a decrease in diversity of views and of backgrounds in teams.”

I agree: a non-sensical argument.

“This is as tenuous and nonsensical as your argument for not hiring people who continue to publish in Lingua.”

I disagree.

“Also, strategically, wouldn’t it make more sense to hire the people who continue to publish in Lingua and then work together towards a different way? After all, there are very few people who continue to publish in Lingua because they passionately believe that for-profit journals should continue in exactly the manner they currently do. Maybe you could take some time to try to understand what other reasons people would have for continuing to publish there?”

Yes, I would like to talk to them. After all the paper appeared by now. I do not understand these authors and I do not see any reason to publish there.

“Maybe they just disagree with blacklists?”

Ha, this would be a funny reason and a made up one since what you call a blacklist did not exist when they submitted the paper.

“Either way, how is blacklisting individual candidates in hiring settings a good answer to any of the pressing issues that our field faces? If anything, it just polarises debate and divides people up even more than they currently are. We should be trying to unite and find good ways to handle structural problems like these together, not to turn on each other and punish junior colleagues individually for things that we ourselves did earlier in our careers.”

I am sorry: We did not do this ourselves. Nobody of us ever published in an Elsevier journal when the high-reputation editorial board of 31 researchers resigned and founded a new journal, which is intended to be the same journal but just open access.

“We should be trying to unite and find good ways to handle structural problems like these together”
I am doing this for almost 10 years with Language Science Press and the DGfS now. This includes work and talks with librarians, research founders and so on. A lot of people, linguists and others are involved with this. If you have further suggestions or want to join, you are most welcome. The amount of work happening in the back was/is enourmous and this is also one of the reasons, I will not hire anybody working against all this.

But you haven’t actually discussed the view in the comment at all. Wasn’t the point there that, as correct as you may be about open access publishing and for-profit journals, you shouldn’t be using not hiring people as the way to make this change happen? This post doesn’t really address that point at all.

There are many reasons why blacklisting is a terrible strategy. For starters, it is illegal. But it is also just bad leadership: there are a lot of people who are very sympathetic to the arguments against for-profit publishing, but who also don’t agree with blacklisting. Why would you want to alienate them all? Why can’t people support what you’re doing with open access publishing without having to blacklist potential hires? Why is the answer to everything in linguistics to just not hire anyone who disagrees? Anyone can make arguments like you’re making, and they are each as nonsensical as the next – here’s one: scholars who promote open access in linguistics are more likely to blacklist other scholars, which leads to a decrease in diversity of views and of backgrounds in teams. Diverse teams have been shown to be more productive and innovative. Therefore hiring scholars who promote open access in linguistics reduces productivity and innovation, so we should not hire scholars who promote open access in linguistics. This is as tenuous and nonsensical as your argument for not hiring people who continue to publish in Lingua.

Also, strategically, wouldn’t it make more sense to hire the people who continue to publish in Lingua and then work together towards a different way? After all, there are very few people who continue to publish in Lingua because they passionately believe that for-profit journals should continue in exactly the manner they currently do. Maybe you could take some time to try to understand what other reasons people would have for continuing to publish there? Maybe they just disagree with blacklists?

Either way, how is blacklisting individual candidates in hiring settings a good answer to any of the pressing issues that our field faces? If anything, it just polarises debate and divides people up even more than they currently are. We should be trying to unite and find good ways to handle structural problems like these together, not to turn on each other and punish junior colleagues individually for things that we ourselves did earlier in our careers.

What? University presses sell out to commercial publishers? I never thought about this option. Interesting.