(119–122) Proposals to amend Articles 51 and 56 and Division III, to allow the rejection of culturally offensive and inappropriate names

Abstract

Taxonomy, like any science, is embedded in culture. This can be both productive (science is an important expression of culture) and counterproductive (when science promotes or perpetuates problematic cultural norms). It is a fact of life that cultures change; at times, the sciences that are embedded within cultures need to change in concert. Three areas where important cultural changes are occurring at present are: (1) a rapidly growing awareness of the importance of dealing with present and past institutional racial injustice, including in the botanical sciences (see, e.g., Williams & al. in Taxon 70: 219–222. 2021); (2) a growing recognition that some culturally prominent historical figures acted in ways that are now regarded as deeply inappropriate (usually by being egregiously damaging to members of other races and cultures); and (3) a growing awareness that some racially derogatory terms that were common and acceptable in the past are now clearly unacceptable. While cultural contexts in the past allowed (or, more usually, actively supported) these actions, behaviours or terms, there is a widespread modern consensus that they are now inappropriate or worse. Ongoing public debates about the appropriateness or otherwise of honouring some historical figures through public statues, named buildings and other honorifics, and changes in our understanding of the appropriateness of some racially derogatory words, attest to these developments. A strength of taxonomy and taxonomic nomenclature is that they change over time. Another strength is that they are deeply rooted in history, with stability and priority as important principles. These two aspects are clearly in tension, and an important challenge for our discipline has been managing this tension and navigating a middle path between instability on the one hand and stasis on the other. Good examples are the gradual acceptance of mechanisms for overriding, in some circumstances, the principle of priority through conservation, and the changes that culminated in the Melbourne Code (McNeill & al. in Regnum Veg. 154. 2012) to allow electronic publication and no longer mandate Latin descriptions or diagnoses. There is currently no provision under the Code that allows names that are insulting, offensive or otherwise deeply culturally inappropriate to be rejected in favour of more suitable names. Criticism has arisen around the continued use of such names (e.g. Gillman & Wright in Commun. Biol. 3: 609. 2020; Knapp & al. in Taxon 69: 1409–1410. 2020). One example is the continued use of the epithet caffra, which as Knapp & al. (l.c.) point out is used in c. 150 names (many of them African) and is a latinization of a word that is so deeply offensive that its use is illegal in South Africa. Another example is epithets honouring George Hibbert (e.g. Hibbertia Andrews, Erica hibbertia Andrews), a prominent English slave-trader and slave-owner who very actively and visibly led British Parliamentary resistance to abolition. That he was a wealthy patron of botany (his wealth derived largely from slavery) cannot overshadow his attitudes, which even at the time were widely considered offensive. We believe that continuing to honour Hibbert is deeply insensitive to many people, not least those with backgrounds directly affected by slavery and the activities of Hibbert and people like him. The proposals presented here provide a mechanism to deal with egregious examples such as these. We propose (1) that Art. 51.1 of the Shenzhen Code (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) be amended to give more clarity to its intent, (2) that a new Art. 51.2 be inserted to provide a mechanism to reject names that are culturally offensive, (3) that Art. 56.1 be amended to allow proposals to reject names on the basis of Art. 51.2, (4) that a new Permanent Nomenclature Committee be constituted under Division III to govern the application of our proposed Art. 51.2, and (5) that consequent editorial amendments be made to Art. 56.2, 56.3 and Div. III Prov. 7.10 to accommodate the new Committee. “51.1. A legitimate name must not be rejected merely because it, or its epithet, is inappropriate or disagreeable not fitting for the taxon, or because another is preferable better suited or better known (but see Art. 51.2, 56.1, and F.7.1), or because it has lost its original meaning.” The Examples cited for Art 51.1 clearly indicate that its intent is to prevent rejection of names that are ill-suited for a taxon, such as ones chosen based on a factual error. None of the Examples covers the issue of culturally offensive names. Nevertheless, Art. 51.1, taken literally outside the context of its Examples, would be likely to effectively preclude any proposal to reject names on the basis that they are offensive, no matter how egregious. Our proposal thus clarifies the original intent of Art. 51.1. “51.2. A legitimate name may be rejected under Art. 56.1 because it, or its epithet, is culturally offensive or inappropriate, because it (a) is derogatory or insulting to a person or group of people, (b) is named in honour of a person that the taxonomic community agrees should not be honoured, or (c) otherwise causes deep offense.” “56.1. Any name that would cause a disadvantageous nomenclatural change (Art. 14.1) or that is regarded as culturally offensive or inappropriate (Art. 51.2) may be proposed for rejection. A name thus rejected, or its basionym if it has one, is placed on a list of nomina utique rejicienda (suppressed names, App. V). Along with each listed name, all names for which it is the basionym are similarly rejected, and none is to be used (see Rec. 50E.2).” Note that the new Art. 51.2 and the amendment to Art. 56.1, as proposed, do no more than establish the grounds and mechanism for the rejection of culturally offensive or inappropriate names. We propose that the actual rejection of such names be handled by a new Permanent Nomenclature Committee established under Div. III. “7.1. There are nine ten Permanent Nomenclature Committees, including five six specialist committees (clauses (e)–(i j)): […] (j) Nomenclature Committee on Culturally Offensive or Inappropriate Names.” Consequent editorial amendments: In Art. 56.2 change “specialist committees for the various taxonomic groups” to “appropriate specialist committee”. In Art. 56.3 change “specialist committee for the taxonomic group concerned” to “appropriate specialist committee”. In Div. III Prov. 7.3 and 7.10 change “five specialist committees” to “six specialist committees”. We propose that a new Permanent Nomenclature Committee be established for the purpose of governing the rejection of culturally offensive or inappropriate names, rather than tasking such decisions to the existing specialist committees (the Nomenclature Committee for Vascular Plants etc.), for three reasons. Firstly, these committees already face substantial workloads dealing with proposals to conserve, protect or reject names, proposals to suppress works, and requests for binding decisions based on the current Code, and it would be inadvisable to increase these workloads further. Secondly, the skills required by members of the existing specialist committees are unlikely to overlap substantially with the skills required by members of the proposed new Committee. Thirdly, issues likely to arise, and the processes of forming a decision, with respect to culturally offensive or inappropriate names are likely to be similar whether the name under question is the name of a vascular plant, bryophyte, fungus, alga etc., and hence a single Committee to deal with all such matters is appropriate. As with the other Permanent Nomenclature Committees, the proposed Nomenclature Committee on Culturally Offensive or Inappropriate Names would operate under the membership provisions of Div. III Prov. 7. Members would be elected by an International Botanical Congress, and the Committee would have the power to elect officers as desired, fill vacancies, and establish temporary subcommittees in consultation with the General Committee (Prov. 7.2). The Secretary of the Committee would be an ex-officio member of the General Committee (Prov. 7.3), while the Rapporteur-général, Vice-rapporteur, and Secretary of the General Committee would be non-voting ex-officio members of the Committee (Prov. 7.7). It would be expected, though we believe does not need to be mandated, that at least one member of the Committee would have expertise in vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, algae and fossils (Prov. 7.4), and Prov. 7 Rec. 1 would apply, i.e. membership should, so far as is practicable, be geographically and gender balanced. Thus, in all respects other than expected expertise, the proposed Committee would operate in a manner familiar to the botanical and nomenclatural community. The proposed Nomenclature Committee on Culturally Offensive or Inappropriate Names will give effect to, and regulate, our proposed Art. 51.2 in the same manner that the current Nomenclature Committees, among other duties, give effect to and regulate the provisions under the Code for the rejection of names under Art. 56. We expect that a common response to this proposal will be the invocation of the “slippery slope”: that is, where will this all end? The “slippery slope” is often used in the form of a reductio ad absurdum, to argue that this proposal if accepted will quickly lead to minor infractions of cultural norms being used to “suppress” many names, and that the system we propose will be abused. We counter that our proposal is self-limited by creating the new Permanent Nomenclature Committee discussed above and maintaining all other provisions of Div. III. Proposals to reject names that are culturally offensive or inappropriate will need to be published in Taxon, as is currently the case for similar proposals under other Articles of the Code, with full reasoning, argument, context and justification. Proposals will be received by the General Committee and referred to the proposed Nomenclature Committee on Culturally Offensive or Inappropriate Names (Prov. 7.9). That Committee will make a recommendation to the General Committee, based on a qualified majority (60%) of members (Prov. 7.14), upon which the General Committee may approve or overturn the recommendation (Prov. 7.15), again with a qualified majority. The General Committee will in turn make its own recommendation, which will be subject to the decision of a later International Botanical Congress (Prov. 7.15), which may reject it (Prov. 5.1(e, f)). We believe that these provisions, and the expertise and experience of members of all the relevant Committees, will quickly establish a precedent that only clearly egregious examples of culturally offensive or inappropriate names will be rejected, with a high degree of consensus, and misuse of the system for trivial rejections will be very limited. We thank Nicholas J. Turland and John H. Wiersema for helpful suggestions that improved the manuscript and Sandra Knapp for discussion on the topic of inappropriate epithets.