VIDA Responds to Boston Review Statement on Junot Díaz

VIDA has responded to Boston Review's decision to continue working with Junot Díaz: "The statement from the Boston Review reads like a template for rationalizing inaction, laying out point by point the logic our culture uses in its continued failure to prioritize the safety of women and non-binary people." 

Additionally:

By keeping known, active predators on a journal’s masthead, it hands these bad actors cultural capital with which to lure and harm more victims. By giving an abuser a platform, Boston Review is widening a dangerous net. Silence and inaction also send a clear and terrible message to all of those in the community who have ever been a victim of harassment or violence.

We applaud the poetry editors of Boston Review—Timothy Donnelly, BK Fischer, and Stefania Heim—for stepping down in the wake of a decision with which they firmly disagree. We hope this sets a precedent for the literary community.

We ask you to join us in working to make all corners of the literary community as safe as possible. We ask the community to work together to make statements like Deborah Chasman’s and Joshua Cohen’s for the Boston Review the unfortunate exception and not the rule.

VIDA concludes their response by calling for signatures in solidarity with the stance that "institutions should be safe havens for the oppressed and not their oppressors." Find the full statement at VIDA.