College and university professors are well-acquainted with the concept of "publish or perish." At most institutes of higher learning, professors are required to publish papers in their field. This is perhaps nowhere else as evident as under scientific majors. Instructors who fail to make timely publications may find themselves looking for work at a different school.
In September 2024, Dr. Lucina Uddin brought an anti-trust class action suit in the Eastern District Court of New York against six of the world's largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals. She claimed that they were guilty of collusion and conspiracy under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
Several months later, the publishers fired back. The publishers filed a motion to dismiss in February of 2025, arguing that they've done nothing wrong. It's up to United States District Judge Hector Gonzales to decide if the case should continue or be quashed.
Yes, These Hoops Are Here for You To Jump Through
In the lawsuit, Dr. Uddin alleges that the defendants — Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Sage Publications, Springer Nature, Wolters Kluwer, and Taylor & Francis — make billions of dollars in fees and unpaid labor by colluding to force professors into working within the confines of a corrupted system. She charges that the defendants conspire to rake in profits by making it their way or the highway.
Submitting an article for publication in a scientific journal differs greatly from the processes used for non-scholarly submissions. Science professors first complete the research necessary to support the theory they wish to advance. This includes ensuring they're breaking new ground and that the experimental methods they employ are accepted and proper for their aims.
The manuscript is then submitted to a journal the professor feels it's suited for. A paper can only be submitted to one journal at a time. If it survives an initial suitability screening by an editor, it moves on to peer review. While it's possible to be accepted without any required changes, it's more common for it to be accepted with revisions or outright rejected.
Another editorial review uses the peer reviews to decide whether to accept it as is, accept it with either major or minor revisions, send it back to the author for resubmission after substantial revisions, or outright reject the work. If rejected, the author is free to submit it elsewhere.
Once accepted for publication, the author can choose whether or not to allow open access to the work. Most scientific authors are encouraged to share their data.
But We're Doing All the Work
Uddin's lawsuit charges that the defendants' collusion operates through a scheme consisting of three parts. By conspiring together to offer no other publishing option, scientific professors publishing through the company to meet the requirements of their job are violated under Section 1 of the Sherman Act in the following ways:
- Peer Review - A scientific publication without peer review is essentially worthless. The publishers don't offer compensation of any kind for peer reviewers. This offers untold labor savings for the publishers as peer reviewers cannot break the chain of abuse.
- Throttling the Sharing of Scientific Knowledge - While a journal is under peer review, the author loses control of the work. They cannot share any of their research during the peer review process.
- Stifling Competition - Scholars cannot submit their journals to more than one publication at a time. This hampers the ability to seek competitive rates and foster competition between the publishers.
As leader of the class action suit, Dr. Uddin seeks to have the defendants' business practices declared unlawful and have the court enjoin from further using them. The suit also seeks treble damages for the wages artificially deflated by the publishers' tactics.
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It — and We Say It Ain't Broke
In their motion to dismiss, the defendants state that this is the way the scholarly publishing industry has always worked. They assert that volunteer peer review has invariably been the accepted norm. Multiple submissions are banned to combat "paper mill" industrial fraud.
The motion also argues that the plaintiffs haven't provided proof of actual injury caused by the way the system works. Stating that a trade association isn't by definition a "walking conspiracy," the defendants seek immediate dismissal of the suit.
Given the narrow audience for most scientific journals, there's concern that a traditional publishing system wouldn't be economically feasible. However, it sounds like a new type of research that science professors would love to experiment with.
Related Resources
- What Is a Motion To Dismiss? (FindLaw's What To Expect When Going To Court)
- What Is Antitrust Law and Trade Regulation? (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
- Fraud and Financial Crimes (FindLaw's Criminal Charges)
