September-October 2004

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Government Scrutinizes Scholarly Publishing

By Marjorie J. Censer

In April, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ruled that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) can proceed to engage in its standard peer-review process and do specified types of editing of articles from countries under U.S. sanction, including Cuba and Iran. The IEEE had stopped editing such articles after learning in 2001 of embargoes maintained by OFAC, a section of the U.S. Treasury Department charged with administering trade sanctions imposed on countries judged by the president to be national security threats. The embargoes affected certain aspects of editing manuscripts submitted by authors from sanctioned countries.

In December 2002, the IEEE asked OFAC to exempt its entire publishing process from the embargoes. The following September, OFAC exempted the IEEE's peer-review process but maintained that editing still required a license. The IEEE then sent OFAC further information about its editing procedures. In April 2004, OFAC ruled that the organization can engage in its standard publishing process as long as any editing it does fits within eight categories of allowable alterations.

These changes, which apply to other publishers of scholarly journals, may include "correcting grammar and spelling to conform to standard American English," "ensuring that the author has supplied a biography and a photo," and "labeling units of measurements with standard abbreviations." Editing that exceeds these guidelines still requires a license from OFAC.

Members of the scholarly community have questioned the clarity of the OFAC ruling and the legal authority of OFAC to regulate publishing. OFAC continues to claim control over any "substantive or artistic alterations or enhancements" of manuscripts, even though Congress exempted exchanges of "information and informational materials" from trade sanctions in 1988.

A statement signed on April 12 by nine organizations of writers, First Amendment advocates, and scholars, including the AAUP, asserts that "while the recent clarification from OFAC resolves some issues, it leaves many unanswered." The signatories add, "We deplore this threat to the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of thought, inquiry, speech, and publication. Protecting our right to create and receive information will do vastly more to keep the country productive, prepared, and secure than an ill-considered embargo on ideas."

In an article published on May 21 in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Givler, director of the Association of American University Presses, contends that OFAC's regulations amount to censorship. "The April 2 rulings resolved nothing, and we are continuing to explore various avenues, including the possibility of taking legal action, for getting OFAC out of the censorship business," he told Academe.