After outcry, ACS restores members

In the wake of complaints from scientists worldwide, the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced Friday that it would reinstate chemists in Iran and Sudan whose memberships it had previously revoked on legal grounds.

The organization had initially barred 36 Iranian members and its one Sudanese member on the grounds that their membership violated U.S. trade sanctions on those countries. Of the Iranians, 22 did not receive membership renewal notices and the others, whose memberships were not up for renewal, were informed that their memberships had been terminated, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Monday.

But when ACS officials later consulted with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the enforcement of those sanctions, they decided to reverse the earlier decision, an ACS press release said.

After the expulsions took place, "the [ACS] board received a number of letters from concerned ACS members who wanted their Iranian colleagues reinstated," the press release added.

On campus, the news of the expulsions spread swiftly through the scientific community. An email, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Princetonian, circulated among academic departments, criticized the organization's move and asked recipients to contact ACS officials and lodge complaints.

"It is understandable that the ACS's board of directors would try to protect the society against the fines predicted by the sanction laws, but the way the ACS has managed the issue is not what other societies have done in the past," the email said, adding that "the common procedure among scientific organizations" has been to ignore the provisions of sanction laws while applying for an exception in the meantime.

"I think that barring foreign members or any members from a society like this is outrageous," chemistry department associate chair Michael Hecht said in late April. "We don't penalize people for the opinions of their governments. Scientific or academic organizations should know better than to do this."

According to the latest ACS statement, the association will now offer memberships in all sanctioned countries, though it won't provide career development services and discount registration fees to national meetings.

The members who were barred were sent an email Friday inviting them to rejoin, and their membership fees and annual postage will be paid by an anonymous donor, ACS executive director Madeleine Jacobs told the Chronicle.

The ACS has over 160,000 members worldwide and provides "a broad range of opportunities for peer interaction and career development, regardless of professional or scientific interests," according to the organization's website.