We utterly reject the claim made in a now withdrawn Angewandte Chemie article that the drive to improve diversity and inclusion has a negative effect on standards.
Last week an article was published in Angewandte Chemie in which the author claims that the drive to improve diversity and inclusion in the chemistry community is having a negative effect on standards. As a scholarly community we utterly reject these claims and affirm our belief that increasing diversity and inclusion is not only a moral imperative but also something that will, by drawing in the widest range of ideas and approaches, result in a strengthening of our science and also an increase in the contribution we can make to society. Any suggestion that the world would be better served by participation of only a small proportion of humanity is not just outdated and irrelevant, but fundamentally wrong.
We welcome the prompt action of the journal in both withdrawing the article and initiating an immediate investigation, but it is nevertheless disappointing that these views were published, without challenge, in the first place. This incident simply confirms the importance of continuing our work to improve equality, diversity and inclusivity in our Department, and we reaffirm our intention so to do.