Are Mandatory Institutional Emails for Manuscript Submission an Unfair and Discriminatory Policy?

Abstract

Abstract With increasing cases of fraud in submission, peer review, and publication processes, some by authors with fake identities and who use concocted emails, including the use of web-based emails, editors and publishers are looking for ways to try and stem the tide of fraud. In some journals, editors and publishers mistakenly believe that this might be possible by implementing a policy that mandates submitting authors to have an institutional email. However, this may be discriminatory at various levels, the most obvious of which is unfairness, i.e., no right to “entry” to a journal based exclusively on the type of email used, even more so when the submitting author is not fake. Such policies might, very ironically, even violate stated journal or publisher policies on discrimination and inclusivity. Editors and publishers that employ such tactics, as a way to attempt to reduce fraudulent submissions, need to rethink this potentially discriminatory strategy. In a publishing world that is becoming increasingly litigious, it would not be surprising if legal action would one day be taken against a journal or publisher by a valid author using a web-based email such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or @163.com, but who may have been unfairly barred entry to that journal based on such a policy. Two real case examples are provided, Tumor Biology, a struggling journal published by IOS Press, and Journal of Business Ethics, a journal published by Springer Nature.