When Are We Gonna Have a Serious Conversation About How Unserious (and Problematic) SIGCSE Is?

Last week, I read a tweet that noted how absurd the entire peer-review process is, especially given one’s “peers” usually lack in some way when it comes to assessing one’s work. This was made so apparent (once again) in the 2023 Special Interest Group in CS Education (SIGCSE) Technical Symposium decisions that were sent yesterday for papers and panels.

To be clear, I’m absolutely in support of feedback that helps us improve as authors and scholars. We see every day in this country what happens when people are surrounded by echo chambers. More important, I was raised by Black parents who encouraged me to dream big, but also kept me grounded in reality. I also have friends who are master truth tellers (even when I haven’t wanted to hear it). Put simply, I’m fully aware that my shit stinks. However, when I read reviews that are rooted in whiteness, elitism, and ignorance, then I have to ask the question: “When will we have the collective conversation about SIGCSE that many of us have had for years now; especially those who are not white and/or do not have a Ph.D.?”

Many of us have discussed how problematic the community is, how it’s dominated by white folks, and how anything related to broadening participation or DEI in computing that doesn’t center whiteness is ignored and discarded. If you are part of this community and haven’t had these conversations with peers, then the odds are you’ve directly benefitted from this centering. That should be telling for you.

Below is an email I sent to 2023 SIGCSE panel and program chairs last night (cc’ing my coauthors) following the reviews we received for our panel proposal. I note that panel proposals were limited to two pages, which means we had to do a LOT with a little. I’m too tired to repurpose it into a blog post, and the email speaks for itself. I honestly hope that Reviewers 1, 2, and 3 end up reading this blog post and are utterly ashamed at their blatant elitism, overt/covert white supremacy, and all-around ignorance they displayed. Since it was single-anonymous reviews, they all know who we are and what our submission was. I also hope that the SIGCSE leadership reads this and is also embarrassed that they claimed to review/discuss all submissions and decided to cosign with the critiques noted below.

As always, the CS education community (especially SIGCSE) relies on people not going against the grain and accepting things with quiet rage that never discomforts anyone. This type of culture continues to allow harm to those of us in the community who were living and breathing the work of equity and inclusion long before it became “the new black” for those who can conveniently step in and out of this work when cosplaying DEI is (or isn’t) a lucrative opportunity for them.

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Dear Panel and Program Chairs,

I am writing this email to express my deep concern, disappointment, and offense with the reviews that were provided for our panel submission #X.

Given that the beginning of the rejection email notes:

The Panels Track Co-Chairs provided recommendations to the Program Co-Chairs and final decisions were made at a meeting between Program and Panels Co-Chairs this past week. We took into consideration reviewer scores and track chair recommendations, as well as the balance of topics across the program (papers, workshops, panels, special sessions, etc), relevance to the conference theme, novelty, and timeliness.

I’m equally disturbed that the chairs allowed these problematic reviews to go forward unchallenged and supported. I am detailing below (on a per-section basis) all of the issues present.

Relevance and Interest

• Reviewer 2 notes “The benefit to the community is not explicitily (sp) discussed, but can be inferred from the abstract.” Both the abstract and the panel goals clearly state the benefit to the community with respect to this panel: [a) define identity-inclusive computing, b) understand the importance of (un)learning, and c) explain the benefits of every (future) K-16 CS educator doing this work to effectively engage and educate students.]
• Reviewer 3 directly contradicts themselves by stating “The panel discussion would be relevant to those who care about K-16 CS education. The usefulness of the panel would largely depend on how the panel questions are answered from the panelists. Without knowing the answers, it is difficult to genuinely assess how relevant it will be to SIGCSE community.” We had exactly 2 pages to propose a panel that included as much info as possible. We provided a clear set of questions that demonstrate we’d thought through the format and had specific audience takeaways. The combination of the aforementioned abstract, goals, and questions demonstrate the community benefit. Expecting panelists to already have answers to each question is asinine and has never been required of any panel proposal for a conference. There isn’t enough room to note this in a two-page proposal. However, each panelists’ position statement included a clear statement on their specific project as a 3C Fellow, which also tied back to the included questions. The relevance of this to the SIGCSE community (as noted in the instructions) is clear throughout this proposal.

Structure and Hybrid Audience Participation

• Reviewer 1 notes “The structure proposed is well thought-out from an in-person perspective, including a set of proposed prompt questions and general flow. However, there is no accounting for how this session could run in hybrid format. This could likely be remedied with some additional effort.” Reviewer 2 notes a lack of inclusion of hybrid audience participation. Of all the feedback in this set of reviews, this is the only one that is remotely valid, and even that is completely hypocritical and subjective, based on my summary comments below re: another accepted panel on which I’m a panelist. I also note that regardless of whether the panelists were all in person, remote, or hybrid, how the panel was implemented does not change. Each panelist has an opportunity to respond to a question, whether they are remote or in-person; otherwise, they would not be a panelist. Finally, the instructions never noted we had to address how we would address audience participation; it specifically noted panelist participation (which makes the aforementioned comments invalid).

Panelist/Presenter Considerations

• Reviewer 3 notes: “Given that some panelists are not a full-time tenure track faculty, it is a bit difficult to assess their technical depth. However, in this panel, I do not think the topic of K-16 education would require someone who is technically deep. I suspect that a subject matter expert is needed and potentially teacher like XXXX can serve as such.” This is not only blatantly elitist, it also demonstrates the reviewers lack of awareness or understanding of identity, identity-inclusive computing, and anything else we discussed in the proposal. We specifically noted in the summary “Note that four panelists are included in this submission instead of three, as each represents not only the range of positions of 3C Fellows, but also an important and unique perspective across the K-16 spectrum.” Why each type of position is included in this panel was clearly discussed. All four panelists committed two years of their time to an intensive program that included not only reading numerous identity-related books, but also participating in regular professional development sessions and developing an identity-inclusive activity at their home organizations. In addition, the entire point of focusing on identity and identity-inclusive computing is that every individual (no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and more) has a unique standpoint that allows them to enter classrooms as a situated knower and learner based on their identities as well as their positions within CS education (tenure and non-tenure track faculty, K-12 educators, and Ph.D. students). Privileged standpoint is discussed throughout Black feminist thought. Yet, this reviewer decided that only those in full-time, tenure-track faculty positions have the “technical depth” to successfully serve as a panelist (or, apparently, to speak on anything in CS education). First, I am not full-time tenure-track faculty. I gave up tenure to accept my current position at Duke. Yet, I’m doing everything tenure-track faculty do and more (especially in this space of identity-inclusive computing). Second, it is important to note (again) that Reviewer 3 previously stated “The panel discussion would be relevant to those who care about K-16 CS education.” Yet this same reviewer only thinks full-time, tenure-track faculty are the only people who have any “depth” to do this work. It is also completely asinine that panelists for a panel focusing on a non-technical CS topic throughout the title and proposal (identity) are now being critiqued for lacking “technical depth” simply because they 1) don’t have a Ph.D. and/or 2) are not full-time, tenure-track faculty. An actual K-12 CS educator has the most depth of anyone to discuss K-12 CS education. A Ph.D. student is more than likely a soon-to-be faculty member. Non-tenure track faculty teach more courses per semester and academic year than tenure-track faculty in their departments. Yet, somehow all three of these critical positions are the ones minimized, dismissed, and trivialized as “lacking” by this reviewer. That this reviewer was so blatantly disrespectful to XXXX specifically is beyond egregious, elitist, and problematic. As a K-12 educator, XXXX teaches more courses per day/week than anyone at the higher ed level. The fact that this reviewer even noted “technical depth” in this comment is absurd and demonstrates their lack of range and ability to even understand the purpose of this panel, as well as their blatant elitism in terms of CS education positions as well as topics. This has long been a problem noted in the SIGCSE community, and as I previously noted in a blog, I led the community survey/presentation at SIGCSE 2020 that discussed the elitism in this community in terms of positions and topics. Specifically, anything not deemed “rigorous” was automatically disregarded.

Feedback on Grammar

• Reviewer 1 noted “The only citation included appears to have capitalization errors (e.g., “hook” instead of “Hook”)”, again demonstrating this reviewer’s lack of range to even accurately assess any part of this proposal. Had the reviewer actually Google’d the “one citation” or the name “bell hooks,” they would know that she never capitalized her name (nor is it “hook”). This reviewer should be completely embarrassed and ashamed (and I would think the panel chairs would be too in reading this). This also demonstrates how little this community understands about not only Black women, but also Black women who are experts in topics related to identity, teaching students about equity and inclusion, and Black feminist thought. Yet, this is the same community that thinks they are on the right path towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. What this also demonstrates to me is that work that centers Black women as experts in CS education (of all places) will continue to be marginalized, dismissed, misnamed, and deemed incorrect and irrelevant by people who are too arrogant to ever understand just how truly ignorant and wrong they are.
• Reviewer 2 notes “My only suggestion for improvement would be to cut down on the number of parentheticals used in the text. There are many of them in the text.” This again makes no sense and, given Reviewer 2’s consistent grammatical errors throughout their review, I find their comments on anything re: the writing style of this proposal completely unserious.

Overall Evaluation

• Reviewer 1 states “The topic is clearly of merit. However, it is somewhat concerning that there is only a single citation for this submission. This is a panel, but there is ample literature on this topic that could be referenced to support the panel’s inclusion; such citation could help readers — and potential attendees — understand more about what topics might be addressed, and how.” First and foremost, the author instructions on the website noted “Citing relevant work where appropriate is encouraged, but not required. If references are included, they should be placed in a separate section titled References and should follow the ACM formatting guidelines.” In addition, the title of the submission “XXXX” is a direct play on bell hooks’ pivotal book, Teaching to Transgress (the only citation needed to demonstrate the “why” of this panel). References were not even required, and yet we were negatively critiqued for only having one, and then not capitalizing the author’s name. These two points alone could demonstrate how completely problematic these reviews were. Yet, there’s still more for me to include.
• Reviewer 2 states “For areas of improvement, I would suggest less time discussing the 3C Fellows program background and more time discussing the benefits to the wider community. It would also be good to include some information how the hybrid attendees will participate.” The discussion of the 3C Fellows was included in the summary to make it clear to the reviewer what the program is and situate each of the panelists in the context of their participation. This text was brief and necessary, as it would’ve been completely foolish of us to assume that every reviewer would know what that program is, what’s required of Fellows, and why that matters in the context of this panel. Yet, again, someone who lacked the range made a comment that demonstrates they should’ve declined to review this.
• Reviewer 3 states “It is a bit difficult to assess how relevant this would be for SIGCSE community, however, since the responses from the panelist are not shown for each question they pose in “2.2 Panel Questions”; also, it is a bit difficult/unclear to assess whether all the panelists have the expertise to drive the discussions. However, the session format is very clear and such format may be conductive for a great discussion, especially with audience Q&A for 30 minutes.” This again demonstrates the blatant elitism and ignorance of Reviewer 3. We are given a two-page limit (two-column format), which must include not only an abstract and summary, but also structure and panelist position statements, plus references (if any are included). I have never, in my 15 years in higher education, seen a panel proposal that includes a panelist response to every proposed question. This again demonstrates how, like Reviewer 2, Reviewer 3 should’ve simply declined to review this, citing their inability to provide an unbiased and accurate review.

Finally, while it was noted that we did not provide a discussion of the panel format in the proposal, I note that there is clearly a biased and selective critique of this requirement. I am a panelist on submission #YYY.

While #YYY noted small group discussions for the audience, nowhere in the submission did it state how the panel would be implemented either. Yet somehow, this was not viewed negatively for this panel, which was accepted. In addition, this submission did not include any potential questions, and only had a brief sentence from each panelist on what they would discuss in their position statements. Our proposal included not only potential questions, but also the unique perspective that each panelist brought to the session. Our panel, written in third person, specifically notes how each panelist contributes. The only difference from submission YYY is that it was not written in first person as “I will discuss.”

All of the comments from our proposal review demonstrate blatant elitism, ignorance, and more from the reviewers. Given the fact that the panel and program chairs met to discuss all of these and make decisions (as indicated in your header email), then I question how you all were comfortable reading this and agreeing with three reviewers who demonstrated they lack any understanding of identity, identity-inclusive computing, or anything else that doesn’t center dominant identities in this community (primarily, whiteness and elitism).

In the documentary “Picture a Scientist,” Dr. Raychelle Burks notes the inordinate amount of time she wastes as a Black woman daily at work addressing a racist and/or misogynistic email/encounter. More important, she discusses how her white and Asian colleagues never have to do this. As a result, it takes away from the time she actually has to do the real work of her job: teaching, research, etc. This is also the “distraction” that keeps one from doing their work that Toni Morrison perfectly describes. I’ve wasted hours today that could’ve been focused on class prep, research, and other manuscripts to call out the egregious set of reviews received and explain to the panel and program chairs in detail why these were so harmful.

To my fellow co-authors, I want to again sincerely apologize for this extremely harmful and disrespectful set of reviews. I would expect a program committee to do a much better job of protecting scholars of all backgrounds and positions in this community from such offensive and blatantly wrong reviewers, especially since this is supposed to be a community focused on K-20 CS education, broadening participation in computing, and more.