No, Women and Minorities Don’t Receive Harsher Reviews
But perceptions tell a different story…
The representation of women and ethnic minorities in academia — particularly in science — is much debated. Whether it be in relation to hiring decisions, presence in top professorial roles, or citation rates, issues about minority representation are among the most hotly debated in all of higher education.
One particular topic to be debated is the disproportionate effect of harsh peer reviews on minority scholars. Essentially, when academics run studies, they write them up as papers and submit them to journals, who subsequently send them out to experts to anonymously review.
Every academic has received horrible reviews.
Some reviewers take the opportunity to use this process to shoe-horn in references to their own work, to grandstand their perceived intellectual superiority, or just to be downright mean. I have personally had suggestions that work I have submitted is pointless, meaningless, and unscientific, and I believe that most researchers have had similar experiences.
For this reason, I saw with interest that New Scientist magazine recently re-shared an article about the disproportionate impact of harsh peer review comments on minorities in science.
