Another Breakup: Why I’m Leaving Professional Societies — Again

I was prohibited from communicating honestly about injustice. So I left.

CC0 licensed photo by Nilo Velez from the WordPress Photo Directory. https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/445678e173/

Note: I can’t / don’t / won’t / shouldn’t control my readers’ actions, but my sincere wish is that nobody tries to figure out what organization I’m talking about in this post. I have had enough professional drama to last several lifetimes and, selfishly, I cannot handle the additional kerfuffle that would result from naming the organization. Also, I don’t wish for anyone in that organization to get harassed/doxxed. I’m writing this post solely because I think it’s important to raise awareness about certain issues we face in the United States, especially during fascist times.

The Past

I am doomed when it comes to relationships… at least, those involving scientific organizations. I’ve been happily married for almost 29 years, so things are fine on the personal front. On the professional front, though, it’s a different story.

For the uninitiated, many scholars belong to professional societies—organizations that support education, research, advocacy for the field, and more. Perhaps you’ve heard of the American Medical Association or the Modern Language Association or the American Geophysical Union? These are the types of organizations I am talking about.

I am a mathematician and data scientist, and over the years, I’ve joined a number of professional societies — before eventually unjoining them.

First, I broke up with one organization for a number of reasons, including:

• Their dehumanization of LGBTQ+ people, and
• Their choice to amplify the view that the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring equates with McCarthyism.

You can read about this particular breakup in my post from 2020, I’m Breaking Up with my Oppressive Professional Society.

Then I broke up with another organization over, among other things, their willful organizational indifference to the harms caused to LGBTQ+ people by their choices of conference sites. I write about this in my book, Counting on Justice (forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2026), so, to quote myself:

In 2023, I refused an invitation to speak in a session at their conference in Florida. At the time, Florida’s landscape included:

- Legal discrimination against LGBTQIA+ individuals in goods and services,
- No recognition of hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ individuals,
- The “gay panic defense” as a viable legal strategy,
- Censorship of LGBTQIA+ content in education,
- Bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and
- Potential jail time for using restrooms not associated with one’s sex assigned at birth.

I don’t walk away from professional societies lightly. These organizations — like most things in life — are a mix of good and bad. They often do valuable work and are full of people I care about and respect. When problems arise, I do everything I can to “call in” — to engage constructively, raise concerns, and push for change from within. But in every case where I’ve tried, those efforts have ultimately failed.

When an organization’s actions veer too far from my moral compass, I reach a point where I can’t stay — no matter how much I admire the people involved or the work being done. Leaving always feels awful. It isolates me professionally and sometimes strains relationships I care deeply about. But in the end, I have to live my values.

The Present

And now, here we are again. It’s July 2025, and I’m breaking up with yet another organization. Months ago, I had a talk accepted for this organization’s conference—specifically, a session on data, equity, and inclusion. My abstract read:

At the time this abstract is being written, the United States is in the midst of a takeover. A small group of unelected officials and private actors have seized control of the government apparatus and are dismantling it. The administration is reopening Guantanamo, rounding up immigrants, dismantling scientific institutions, abandoning public safety, rolling back civil rights, and systematically erasing queer people. This is not business as usual. You came to this talk to hear about data science. The speaker will present concrete examples of how mathematical scientists can use data to fight — and why doing so is an urgent necessity. The goal of this presentation is to prompt attendees to (further) action.

The conference is coming up a bit in the future, and a few days ago, I received an email from an officer of the society that said, among other things:

I believe the [abstract] too strongly expresses a political ideology, does not indicate scientific neutrality, and therefore the content can be deemed biased and politically charged. The goal of a [redacted organization] talk should be to share [redacted field] advances and insights, not to advocate for specific political activism. While there might be many participants who have similar feelings as expressed in this abstract, it may not be true of everyone. Discounting those people, I believe, does not allow for healthy, respectful, unbiased scientific discourse. I’m going to ask the conference managers to remove the current title and abstract from the conference website, and would like you to come up with something that does not express political ideology. I also think that modifications… could help attract a wider audience to your talk.

Here’s what I wrote back:

I’ve long admired [redacted organization] — both for its technical excellence and its values. I’ve told many people over the years — loudly and unprompted — how much I respect [organization]’s commitment to inclusion, to applied work that engages the world, and to open exchange across difference. That’s why receiving this email is really painful and distressing.

I hear you that my abstract may have caused discomfort. But discomfort — especially around issues of equity and justice — is not only inevitable, it’s essential for real progress. As [organization]’s own policies affirm, the open expression and exchange of ideas is core to the mission. Asking for “neutrality” in a session explicitly about equity and inclusion undermines that commitment. In my view, changing my title/abstract to not reflect the truth and danger of this moment is, in fact, the non-neutral position, emphasizing the importance of normalizing abnormal behavior that is, by the declaration of the current administration, an effort to destroy inclusion and equity efforts.

I also need to challenge the premise that [field] is — or ever could be — neutral. This idea has been widely critiqued by scholars across disciplines. A few accessible starting points:

- [redacted sources]

My talk grows from this lineage, and I believe it fits squarely within the aims of the session. I’m not interested in sugarcoating the message, nor do I need help attracting an audience. What I offered in the abstract is the talk I intend to give if allowed (and otherwise, sadly for me, no talk).

I hope [organization] will reflect seriously on what it means to support equity work in more than name. That means creating space for truth-telling, even when it’s uncomfortable — especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Best,
Chad

Short story, I got told no. The person wrote me back and said

I am sorry that my message was not received in the spirit in which it was intended.

I told this person that I’m autistic and don’t usually process messages in a particular “spirit” — I simply focus on the words that are actually said. But this doesn’t mean I don’t have reactions. I mean, come on: you are literally censoring my already-accepted talk. How exactly am I supposed to react to that? It felt gaslight-y, to say the least.

At this point, I had to write various arms of the organization to resign from my service commitments and to cancel my membership. I won’t paste in all the emails, but I promise you, I dug deep to find my best self. I was polite, professional, and I expressed gratitude to the organization for all it has done for me, while also explaining the reason I was leaving.

And then the REAL email deluge started. People from the society kept emailing me—sometimes in group threads, sometimes alone—to try to explain why the organization’s request to me was legitimate, to ask me to explain my stance, and worst of all, to suggest watered down language for my abstract.

This is the point where my autistic self began SCREAMING INTERNALLY. How could anyone fail to understand my extremely clear and direct messages? Or perhaps they did understand—and just didn’t care.

Here are some examples of the communication I received. One message said:

The concern, which we agreed was valid, was that the title and abstract you proposed are unnecessarily politically charged and not in line with the expectations of professional discourse… The hope is that you can provide something that is more in line with expectations of scientific discourse.

I’m thinking to myself, let me get this straight. The organization has now told me:

1. I’m biased,
2. I need help attracting an audience (I don’t), and
3. I don’t understand scientific discourse and should follow this person’s rules for it.

Hard pass. I replied, politely,

Thanks for this. I sincerely appreciate your care here. I think I need to reiterate my point that the request is not in line with my values, so I can’t comply. I feel like I must also say that the setting of “expectations of scientific discourse” is actually the very political decision here! Happy to provide academic resources on this point if it is a thing you are curious about.

Various other messages included suggested re-writes of my abstract, for instance:

At the time of this writing, the United States is experiencing a period of rapid institutional and societal change. These shifts raise important questions about the role of data and mathematical modeling in supporting equity, accountability, and public well-being. This talk will explore how applied mathematics and data science can contribute to areas such as immigration policy, criminal justice, public health, civil rights, education, and LGBTQ+ inclusion. The speaker will present concrete examples of how mathematical scientists can use data to advance social justice — and why doing so is an urgent necessity. The goal of this presentation is to prompt attendees to (further) action.

I don’t know if the changes feel substantive to you, gentle reader, but they do to me, and it’s my talk. So at this point, I was feeling frustrated about having my message coopted and also feeling frustrated about the procedure. My talk had already been accepted! I’m not a beginning student! I’m a 50-year-old professor who has given over 200 talks! I do not need help expressing myself!

Anyway, I wrote back the following (full disclosure, I’m correcting various small errors I made in the email I actually sent because I was writing so quickly to so many people all at once):

For me, hiding a fascist takeover is not something I’m able to do. The point, for me, is to name it and talk to people about it. Hiding the very real harm that is being done to people in the present moment enables and perpetuates that harm. That is also not something I’m able to do. I hope what I’ve said is understandable, as I am really not able to provide any more clarity or information than I already have.

I kept receiving messages and so I finally wrote a long and STILL polite (I swear!) message to people, again expressing my gratitude to the organization. But I also said

I want you to know, once again, that I hear you but I decline to do what you are asking. I keep getting asked to explain (which I have done extensively, even though I do not believe I should have to) and/or to consider heavily edited versions of my materials that others have created… In service of comity, I actually beg you all to please stop proposing modifications and to please stop trying to further justify/explain your request to me. I don’t know how to be more clear than I already have been.

Gentle reader, the response to this email was: TO WRITE ME BACK WITH ANOTHER PROPOSED MODIFICATION OF MY ABSTRACT. I replied, simply,

Please, I am asking politely again.

And then the emails finally stopped.

The End

That’s the end of this post — and, for now, the end of my relationship with professional societies.

I’m not saying no professional society could ever align with my values. Maybe one exists. Maybe one will. But none of the ones I’ve given my time, energy, and loyalty to have shown me that alignment when it truly mattered.

I’m not leaving because I don’t care. I’m leaving because I do.

I believe in science that tells the truth, even when the truth is inconvenient. I believe in communities that make space for anger, urgency, and moral clarity — not just “neutrality.” I believe we can’t fight for equity while asking people to soften their words.

This isn’t a sad ending for me — it’s a clarifying one. I still believe in solidarity. I still believe in resistance. And I still believe in the courage to speak plainly, even when others ask you to speak softly.

I didn’t walk away from these spaces because I didn’t want to speak the truth. I left because I was told I couldn’t — at least not without rewriting it.

So I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done: using math, and data, and words to fight for justice. Just not in spaces where the truth has to be disguised to be allowed.

And honestly? That clarity feels like freedom.