Dear Members of the Board of Governors:
As members of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH), you should have received an email on 18 June 2020 from President Beachy and me concerning the possibility of renaming the Society’s journal. The impetus for a name change stemmed from a response to the ASIH Diversity and Inclusion Committee “Black Lives Matter” email on 5 June 2020 that highlighted that if the Society was serious about diversity that they need to look into the racist views of Edward Drinker Cope. After a thorough investigation by members of the Diversity and Inclusion and Executive Committees, it was clear that some of the writings of Cope were repugnant and at odds with the values of ASIH. On 24 June 2020, the Executive Committee met with members of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee by Zoom.
This meeting included a lengthy discussion of the eight possible names offered by the 2014 Copeia Ad Hoc Committee (in litt.), the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the Executive Committee as well as serious/sincere names offered by members via email or on social media following the 18 June 2020 email. Notably, there was broad consensus across the independent lists of potential names. Many factors were discussed ranging from the title being representative of what we publish, the title avoiding the term American such that the journal was not viewed as provincial, ensuring dissimilarity of the name from the existing Journal of Herpetology and Journal of Ichthyology, brevity, and, while on point, shying away from ectotherms or cold blooded because it might sound too physiological. Further, there was a discussion about engaging the Board of Governors or membership to help determine the name, and there was substantive support for this idea. This was balanced by the need for a decision to follow the ASIH constitution and the urgent need for a name to ensure that, if supported by the Board of Governors, the name change could be implemented for the first issue of 2021. Logistically, papers for the first issue of 2021 begin processing in ~100 days, and that timeframe provides an incredibly small window of time for designing and rebranding the journal and its five associated websites with our publishing partners. After this discussion, the ease of unanimity on the preferred name combined with the importance of changing the name for 2021 drove the Executive Committee to recommend Ichthyology & Herpetology as the preferred new title of the Society’s journal.
As noted in the ASIH constitution: “The Editor shall report through the ASIH Executive Committee to the Board of Governors, and shall seek Executive Committee and Board of Governor approval for any substantive change in ASIH publishing product or practice, especially where new or unanticipated expenditures of ASIH funds are involved.” On behalf of the Executive Committee of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and with their unanimous support, I am requesting the approval of the Board of Governors for a change in the name of the Society's journal from Copeia to Ichthyology & Herpetology. Accordingly, this action will be presented below for your approval or rejection.
Our journal has been named Copeia since John Treadwell Nichols created the journal in 1913 to commemorate the prolific contributions of E. D. Cope to herpetology and ichthyology. As noted by Smith and Mitchell (1), “Copeia… [started] as a simple four-page newsletter, with no title page, no masthead, no return address, and no introduction or explanation.” Today, more than a century later, the journal and the Society that formed around this initial newsletter are among the most prestigious and prominent exemplars of their respective entities in zoology. Renaming the journal Ichthyology & Herpetology will best represent the mission, values, and role of the Society and the content of its journal rather than further promoting the legacy of E. D. Cope.
Over the years, members of ASIH have recognized that the name Copeia does not readily represent the content of the journal. Recently, the 2014 Copeia Ad Hoc Committee formally recommended that the journal change its name to better represent its content as has been done by other peer journals in the previous 20 years (e.g., American Zoologist being renamed Integrative and Comparative Biology). In 2014, there was some support for changing the name of the journal from Copeia, but the support for this change was decidedly in the minority because of the tradition of Copeia and the scientific contributions of E. D. Cope.
As described in the 2017 “BOG Book,” ASIH formed the Committee on Diversity (now ASIH Diversity and Inclusion Committee) and pledged to take steps to support scientists from historically and currently underrepresented groups in the sciences. To follow through with this pledge, we must make concrete and meaningful changes to the status quo to support these current and future scientists. We have always recognized Cope’s tremendous contributions to herpetology and ichthyology (e.g., 2, 3). Now it is time to recognize and reject his misogynist and racist views and publications (e.g., 4, 5) that our current membership finds abhorrent. Davidson’s (6) biography covers Cope’s views on human evolution, society, and religion in a dedicated chapter if you would like more information. These views are so prominent that they are even highlighted in Cope’s Wikipedia entry (7). Recent events have made it clear that it is time to assess the messages we send when we explicitly honor someone with a monument, building, or journal name.
For over 100 years, we have published a journal commemorating Cope’s herpetological and ichthyological research, and a journal name change will not diminish that legacy. But the Executive Committee believes that it is time for the next 100 years to follow Nichols’ wish of advancing “the science of cold-blooded vertebrates” without bias or prejudice. One step toward that goal is to rename our Society’s journal as Ichthyology & Herpetology to highlight the content that we publish and remove the stigma associated with Cope’s views.
Please vote on the following action:
A) DO NOT CHANGE the name of the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists from Copeia.
B) CHANGE the name of the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists from Copeia to Ichthyology & Herpetology.
Respectfully submitted,
W. Leo Smith
Editor, Copeia
References:
1. Smith, D. G. and J. C. Mitchell. 2013. 100th Anniversary of Copeia. Copeia 2013:1–7. https://www.doi.org/10.1643/OT-12-140
2. Cope, E. D. 1870. Synopsis of the extinct Batrachia, Reptilia and Aves of North America. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 14:1–252. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1005355.pdf
3. Cope, E. D. 1871. Contribution to the ichthyology of the Lesser Antilles. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 14:445–483. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1005256.pdf
4. Cope, E. D. 1890. Two perils of the Indo-European. The Open Court 3:2052–2054. https://bit.ly/TwoPerils
5. Cope, E. D. 1887. The Origin of the Fittest: Essays on Evolution. D. Appleton and Company, New York.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/24160#/summary
6. Davidson, J. P. 1997. The Bone Sharp: The Life of Edward Drinker Cope. The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
7. Wikipedia. 2020. Edward Drinker Cope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Drinker_Cope (accessed 23 June 2020).
