Open Letter to the LSA

Dear Linguistic Society of America,

This is an open letter by members of the linguistics community calling for the removal of Dr. Steven Pinker from both our list of distinguished academic fellows and our list of media experts. We, the undersigned, believe that Dr. Pinker’s behavior as a public academic is not befitting of a representative of our professional organization, that the LSA’s own stated goals make such a conclusion inevitable, and that the LSA should publicly reaffirm its position and distance itself from Dr. Pinker.

Induction into the list of LSA fellows is one of the highest signals of prestige in the linguistic community. Often, fellows are seen as the first line of academic linguistic authority, and trustworthy sources of linguistic knowledge. Lay people and members of the press reach out to fellows and media experts for official statements. We feel that fellows therefore have a responsibility that comes with the honor, credibility, and visibility allotted them by their distinguished appointment. Dr. Pinker does not live up to this standard.

As we demonstrate below, Dr. Pinker’s behavior is systematically at odds with the LSA’s recently issued statement on racial justice, which argues that “listening to and respecting [the experience of students of color] is crucial, as is acknowledging and addressing rather than overlooking or denying the role of the discipline of linguistics in the reproduction of racism.” Instead, Dr. Pinker has a history of speaking over genuine grievances and downplaying injustices, frequently by misrepresenting facts, and at the exact moments when Black and Brown people are mobilizing against systemic racism and for crucial changes.

Though no doubt related, we set aside questions of Dr. Pinker’s tendency to move in the proximity of what The Guardian called a revival of “scientific racism”, his public support for David Brooks (who has been argued to be a proponent of “gender essentialism”), his expert testimonial in favor of Jeffrey Epstein (which Dr. Pinker now regrets), or his dubious past stances on rape and feminism. Nor are we concerned with Dr. Pinker’s academic contributions as a linguist, psychologist and cognitive scientist. Instead, we aim to show here Dr. Pinker as a public figure has a pattern of drowning out the voices of people suffering from racist and sexist violence, in particular in the immediate aftermath of violent acts and/or protests against the systems that created them.

Below, we document six relevant occasions that show how Dr. Pinker’s behavior is systematically and directly at odds with the LSA’s stated aims. We believe that these examples show that Dr. Pinker is untenable as an LSA fellow and should not be allowed to retain that status.

In 2015, Dr. Pinker tweeted “Police don’t shoot blacks disproportionately”, linking to a New York Times article by Sendhil Mullainathan.

Let the record show that Dr. Pinker draws this conclusion from an article that contains the following quote: “The data is unequivocal. Police killings are a race problem: African-Americans are being killed disproportionately and by a wide margin.” (original emphasis) We believe this shows that Dr. Pinker is willing to make dishonest claims in order to obfuscate the role of systemic racism in police violence.

In 2017, when nearly 1000 people died at the hands of the police, the issue of anti-black police violence in particular was again widely discussed in the media. Dr. Pinker moved to dismiss the genuine concerns about the disproportionate killings of Black people at the hands of law enforcement by employing an “all lives matter” trope (we refer to Degen, Leigh, Waldon & Mengesha 2020 for a linguistic explanation of the trope’s harmful effects) that is eerily reminiscent of a “both-sides” rhetoric, all while explicitly claiming that a focus on race is a distraction. Once again, this clearly demonstrates Dr. Pinker’s willingness to dismiss and downplay racist violence, regardless of any evidence.

Pinker (2011:107) provides another example of Dr. Pinker downplaying actual violence in a casual manner: “[I]n 1984, Bernhard Goetz, a mild-mannered engineer, became a folk hero for shooting four young muggers in a New York subway car.”---Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teenagers for saying “Give me five dollars.” (whether it was an attempted mugging is disputed). Goetz, Pinker’s mild-mannered engineer, described the situation after the first four shots as follows: “I immediately looked at the first two to make sure they were ‘taken care of,’ and then attempted to shoot Cabey again in the stomach, but the gun was empty.” 18 months prior, the same “mild-mannered engineer” had said "The only way we're going to clean up this street is to get rid of the sp*cs and n*****s", according to his neighbor. Once again, the language Dr. Pinker employs in calling this person “mild-mannered” illustrates his tendency to downplay very real violence.
In 2014, a student murdered six women at UC Santa Barbara after posting a video online that detailed his misogynistic reasons. Ignoring the perpetrator’s own hate speech, Dr. Pinker called the idea that such a murder could be part of a sexist pattern “statistically obtuse”, once again undermining those who stand up against violence while downplaying the actual murder of six women as well as systems of misogyny.

On June 3rd 2020, during historic Black Lives Matter protests in response to violent racist killings by police of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many many others, Dr. Pinker chose to publicly co-opt the academic work of a Black social scientist to further his deflationary agenda. He misrepresents the work of that scholar, who himself mainly expressed the hope he felt that the protests might spark genuine change, in keeping with his belief in the ultimate goodness of humanity. A day after, the LSA commented on its public twitter account that it “stands with our Black community”. Please see the public post by linguist Dr. Maria Esipova for a more explicit discussion of this particular incident.
On June 14th 2020, Dr. Pinker uses the dogwhistle “urban crime/violence” in two public tweets (neither of his sources used the term). A dogwhistle is a deniable speech act “that sends one message to an outgroup while at the same time sending a second (often taboo, controversial, or inflammatory) message to an ingroup”, according to recent and notable semantic/pragmatic work by linguistic researchers Robert Henderson & Elin McCready [1,2,3]. “Urban”, as a dogwhistle, signals covert and, crucially, deniable support of views that essentialize Black people as lesser-than, and, often, as criminals. Its parallel “inner-city”, is in fact one of the prototypical examples used as an illustration of the phenomenon by Henderson & McCready in several of the linked works.^[1]

We believe our appeal to remove Dr. Pinker from the LSA fellows list and the list of media experts falls within the purview of the LSA because of the goals that the LSA has set for itself. In its public statement on race, the LSA “encourag[es] linguists to critically reflect on the changing nature of academic, social, cultural, and linguistic understandings of race”, and explicitly states that “there is no linguistic justice without racial justice… [this stance] requires that linguists actively work to promote equity and social justice in ways that benefit underrepresented scholars and communities of color”. We believe that the examples above show that Dr. Pinker's established pattern of behavior stands in direct opposition to the LSA’s publicly stated aims, and the work they call for.

We want to note here that we have no desire to judge Dr. Pinker’s actions in moral terms, or claim to know what his aims are. Nor do we seek to “cancel” Dr. Pinker, or to bar him from participating in the linguistics and LSA communities (though many of our signatories may well believe that doing so would be the right course of action). We do, however, believe that the examples introduced above establish that Dr. Pinker’s public actions constitute a pattern of downplaying the very real violence of systemic racism and sexism, and, moreover, a pattern that is not above deceitfulness, misrepresentation, or the employment of dogwhistles. In light of the fact that Dr. Pinker is read widely beyond the linguistics community, this behavior is particularly harmful, not merely for the perception of linguistics by the general public, but for movements against the systems of racism and sexism, and for linguists affected by these violent systems.

Sincerely,

The Linguistics Community

Errata:
The UCSB incident involved the murder of 2 women and 4 men, not 6 women as stated in the text. Regardless of the identities of the victims, the murderer was driven by misogyny, as demonstrated both by his manifesto and the fact that the perpetrator targeted a sorority house. Dr Pinker's tweet either ignores or denies this aspect of the event.

(If you would like to add your name to this open letter, please sign using this google form. All signatures will be alphabetized by last name, and added to the document at regular intervals. Everyone who identifies as a linguist is welcome, and encouraged to sign. For comments, or questions, please reach out to lettertothelsa2020@gmail.com.
Addendum: Unfortunately, due to the form being abused both to threaten the editors, and to interfere with the signing process, we can, at this point, only accept signatures via email, and will only accept signatures from valid .edu addresses, or equivalent.)

Addendum 2 - Response from the LSA:

[1] Letter to LSA members

[2] Response to the open letter:

Subject: Acknowledgment of your letter to the LSA
(timestamp: Friday July 10th 2020, 11:41am PST)
“Dear lettertothelsa@gmail.com [sic]

Thank you for sending this letter to the LSA leadership for consideration. It was circulated to our Executive Committee, where it was discussed extensively. As an outgrowth of that discussion, the LSA will be convening two task forces to examine appropriate methods of addressing the requests made in your letter. This will include the consideration of policies and procedures for designating Media Experts and reconsidering a member’s status as a Fellow. We ask for your patience as these two task forces undertake this important work in a measured and deliberative manner.

Best regards,

Alyson Reed, Executive Director

Marianne Mithun, President

Lenore Grenoble, Secretary-Treasurer”

#	Name	Affiliation	Role
1	A, Pranav	Science Park, Hong Kong	NLP Engineer
2	Abner, Natasha	University of Michigan	Assistant Professor
3	Abramovitz, Rafael	MIT	PhD student
4	Ackerman, Lauren	Newcastle University
5	Adamson, Luke	Harvard University	Postdoctoral Researcher
6	Adger, David	Queen Mary University of London	Professor of Linguistics
7	Ahmed, Anaïs
8	Ahmed, Samuel
9	Ahn, Byron	Princeton	Assistant Professor
10	Alam ,Marghoob
11	Alden, Paul	University of Maryland
12	Altshuler, Daniel	University of Oxford	Associate Professor
13	Ananthanarayan, Sunkulp	The University of Texas at Austin
14	Anderson, Carolyn	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	PhD candidate
15	Anderson, Catherine	McMaster University	Associate Professor
16	Andersson, Samuel	Yale University	PhD Student
17	Antonenko, Andrei	Stony Brook University	Lecturer
18	Aravind, Athulya	MIT Linguistics	Assistant Professor
19	Arehalli, Suhas	Johns Hopkins University	PhD student
20	Arnett, Catherine	UC San Diego	Graduate Student
21	Arregi, Karlos	The University of Chicago	Associate Professor
22	Arunachalam, Sudha	New York University	Associate Professor
23	Asinari, Sarah	University of Connecticut	PhD Student
24	Atkinson, Emily	University of Michigan	Postdoctoral Research Fellow
25	Auderset, Sandra	UC Santa Barbara	PhD Candidate
26	Auger, Julie	Université de Montréal	Associate Professor
27	Austen, Martha	The Ohio State University	PhD Candidate
28	Babaji, Charles		Analytical Engineer
29	Babinski, Sarah	Yale University	PhD Candidate
30	Bai, Justin	CU Boulder	PhD student
31	Baier, Nico	University of British Columbia	Postdoc
32	Baird, Maggie	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	PhD Student
33	Bakos, Jon	Indiana State University	Assistant Professor
34	Bakst, Sarah	University of Wisconsin–Madison	Postdoctoral Researcher
35	Ballwahn, Isaac	New York University
36	Banerjee, Neil	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	PhD candidate
37	Baratta, Amy
38	Barchas-Lichtenstein, Jena	Knology	Researcher
39	Barnes, Sonia	Marquette University	Associate Professor
40	Baron, Bertille	Georgetown University	PhD Candidate
41	Baron, Christopher	MIT	PhD Student
42	Barros, Matthew	Washington University in St. Louis	Lecturer
43	Barry, Daniel	The Graduate Center, CUNY
44	Bartell, Stefan	University of Delaware	graduate student
45	Barzilai, Maya L.	Georgetown University	PhD Candidate
46	Basu, Sanjay	Life Member, AAAI / Life Member, ACM	NLP Services
47	Bauman, Carina	NYU	Alum
48	Baxter, Kimberley	New York University	PhD Student
49	Beam de Azcona, Rosemary G.	Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia	Professor
50	Becker, Kara	Reed College	Associate Professor
51	Becker, Michael	UMass Amherst
52	Beckman, Mary		Fellow, Linguistics Society of America
53	Beer, Samuel	University of Virginia	Postdoctoral Researcher
54	Belew, Anna	University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa	Adjunct Assistant Professor
55	Bell, Elise	UCLA
56	Bell, Regina	Binghamton University	Alum
57	Bender, Emily M.	University of Washington, Department of Linguistics	Professor
58	Benkato, Adam	UC Berkeley	Assistant Professor
59	Bennett, Ryan	University of California, Santa Cruz	Associate Professor
60	Berez-Kroeker, Andrea	University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Linguistics	Associate Professor
61	Berhow, Lori	Iowa State University	Alum
62	Bermúdez, Natalia	University of Chicago	Assistant Professor
63	Biers, Kelly	University of North Carolina at Asheville	Assistant Professor
64	Bigelow, Lauren	University of Toronto	PhD Student
65	Bisnath, Felicia	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	PhD student
66	Bjorkman, Bronwyn	Queen’s University	Assistant Professor
67	Blamire, Emily	University of Toronto
68	Blaxter, Tamsin	Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge
69	Blix, Hagen	New York University	PhD Candidate
70	Blum, Eileen	Rutgers University	PhD Candidate
71	Blum, Mirella	University of Edinburgh	Student
72	Blümel, Andreas	University of Göttingen	Postdoctoral researcher
73	Bodeveryy, Lise	Vanderbilt University	Alum
74	Borer, Hagit	Queen Mary University of London	Department chair
75	Bossi, Madeline	UC Berkeley
76	Bouavichith, Dominique A.	University of Michigan	PhD Candidate
77	Bourgerie Hunter, Marie		Private sector computational linguist
78	Bowen, Caroline	Macquarie University	Research Fellow
79	Bowern, Claire	Yale university	Professor
80	Bowie, David	University of Alaska Anchorage	Professor
81	Bowman, Samuel R.	New York University	Assistant Professor
82	Bradley, Evan	Penn State University	Associate Professor of Psychology
83	Brickhouse, Christian	Stanford	PhD candidate
84	Brodkin, Dan	UC Santa Cruz	PhD Student
85	Brown, Meredith
86	Brunetto, Valentina	University of Leeds
87	Buchwald, Adam	New York University
88	Bui, Thuy	Hoa Sen University	Assistant Professor
89	Burkholder, Ross	Calvin University	Affiliate Professor
90	Butler, Becky	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Adjunct Assistant Professor
91	Byrd, Andrew	University of Kentucky	Associate Professor of Linguistics
92	Cable, Seth	University of Massachusetts Amherst	Associate Professor
93	Callahan, Erin	WCU	Associate Professor
94	Callesano, Salvatore	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Assistant Professor
95	Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn	Ohio State University
96	Campolong, Kelsey	Ulster University	PhD Researcher
97	Canjura, Julian	Northern Arizona University	Graduate student
98	Canning, Dominique	University of Michigan	PhD Candidate
99	Carmichael, Katie	Virginia Tech	associate professor
100	Carruthers, Brendan	Cognitive Science B.A.
101	Carstens, Vicki	Southern Illinois University Carbondale	Professor & Chair
102	Catlin, Sara	Stony Brook University
103	Chacón, Dustin A.	New York University Abu Dhabi	Research Scientist
104	Chadwick, Stacie
105	Chaiphet, Khanin	Stony Brook University	PhD Student
106	Chambers, Summer	University of Virginia	Linguistics MA
107	Chang, Charles B.	Boston University	Associate Professor
108	Chatten, Alicia	New York University
109	Chemey, Natasha	Rutgers University	Graduate Fellow
110	Chen, Daniel	CU Boulder	PhD student
111	Chen, Tingchun
112	Cheng, Hung-Shao	New York University Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders	PhD student
113	Chong, Adam	Queen Mary University of London	Lecturer
114	Christofori, Ulrike	San Joaquin Delta College	Instructor
115	Clare, Emily
116	Clark, McKenzie		Student
117	Clark, Tallis	McGill University	Student
118	Clauss, Michael	University of Massachusetts Amherst
119	Clem, Emily	University of California, San Diego	Assistant Professor
120	Clemens, Lauren	University at Albany	Assistant professor
121	Clevenger, Joanna	California State University, San Bernardino	Graduate Student
122	Clifford, Lily	Stanford University	PhD Student
123	Clopper, Cynthia	Ohio State University	Professor
124	Cockrum, Paul	The Ohio State University	Graduate Student
125	Collister, Lauren B.	University of Pittsburgh	Faculty Librarian
126	Conner, Katherine	The Ohio State University	PhD Student
127	Connor, Janet	University of Chicago	PhD Candidate
128	Conrod, Kirby	University of Washington
129	Coon, Jessica	McGill University	Associate Professor
130	Coons, Caitlin	The University of Texas at Austin	PhD student
131	Copeland, Samantha	University of North Texas	Student
132	Cornall, Termy
133	Cotter, William	University of Arizona
134	Cournane, Ailís	New York University	Assistant Professor
135	Cowper, Elizabeth	University of Toronto
136	Cox, Julia
137	Cox, Taylor	Arizona State University	Research Technician
138	Craft, Justin T.	University of Michigan	Ph.D Student
139	Craioveanu, Radu	University of Toronto	PhD candidate
140	Crouch, Caroline	UC Santa Barbara	graduate student
141	Crowley, Archie	University of South Carolina	PhD Student
142	Culbertson, Jennifer	University of Edinburgh	Reader
143	Cunningham, Emma		Software Engineer
144	D'Angelo, Jason	Georgetown University	Phd. Candidate
145	D’Arcy, Alexandra	University of Victoria	Professor
146	Dabkowski, Meghan	University of Delaware	Assistant Professor
147	Dahlberg-Dodd, Hannah
148	Daitya, Patrick	Monash University Linguistics Society	President
149	Daland, Robert	Apple, Inc.	Software Engineer
150	Dale, Christopher
151	Danis, Nicholas	Washington University in St. Louis	Lecturer
152	Davidson, Diana
153	Davidson, Lisa	NYU	Professor
154	Davis, Emory	Johns Hopkins University	Postdoctoral Fellow
155	Davis, Jenny	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	Associate Professor
156	de Haas, Nynke	Utrecht University	Lecturer
157	De Santo, Aniello	University of Utah	Assistant Professor
158	de Vries, Hanna	Leiden University	Lecturer
159	Déchaine, Rose-Marie	University of British Columbia	Associate Professor
160	DeGiulio, Stephen	Santa Fe Community College	Professor
161	DeMarco, Stephanie	Birmingham City University	Education Developer
162	Denis, Derek	University of Toronto Mississauga	Assistant Professor
163	DeRoma, Cynthia Zocca	Yale University	Lector
164	Devlin, Kerri	UCLA	Graduate Student
165	Dewey-Findell, Martin	University of Nottingham	Assistant Professor
166	Dewey-Findell, Tonya Kim	University of Nottingham	Visiting Research Fellow
167	Dial, Heather	The University of Texas at Austin	Postdoctoral Fellow
168	DiCanio, Christian	University at Buffalo	Assistant Professor
169	Dinkin, Aaron	San Diego State University	Assistant Professor
170	Dockum, Rikker	Swarthmore College	Visiting Assistant Professor
171	Dolatian, Hossep	Stony Brook University	Alum
172	Doliana, Aaron	University of Maryland	PhD Student
173	dos Santos, Wesley	University of California, Berkeley	PhD student
174	Drackley, Patrick	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	PhD Candidate
175	Drake, Shiloh
176	Driscoll, Trevor	MIT
177	Drummond, Emily	University of California, Berkeley	Graduate student
178	Duncan, Daniel	Newcastle University	Lecturer in Sociolinguistics
179	Dupuy, Alexandra	Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)	Graduate student
180	Durryyah, Nazahat	Boston University	Alum, Linguistics Blogger
181	Dusek, Ondrej	Charles University, Prague	Assistant Professor
182	Easterday, Shelece	University of Hawai'i at Mānoa	Assistant Professor
183	Eberhardt, Maeve	University of Vermont	Associate Professor
184	Elliott, Patrick	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Postdoctoral Associate
185	Esipova, Maria	Princeton University, Program in Linguistics	Postdoctoral Research Associate
186	Everdell, Michael	The University of Texas, Austin	PhD Student
187	Farinella, Alessa	UMass Amherst	PhD Student
188	Farkas, Rebecca
189	Farris-Trimble, Ashely	Simon Fraser University	Associate Professor
190	Faytak, Matthew	UCLA	Postdoctoral Fellow
191	Feeny, Graham	New York University Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders	PhD Student
192	Feldscher, Cara (Danny)	Michigan State University	PhD graduate
193	Figueroa, Megan	University of Arizona
194	Finley, Sara	Pacific Lutheran University	Associate Professor
195	Fleckenstein, Kristen	Coastal Carolina University	Assistant Professor
196	Fleisher, Nicholas	University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	Associate Professor
197	Fletcher, Lauren	University of Edinburgh	PhD Student NLP
198	Fong, Suzana	MIT	graduate student
199	Forrest, Jon	University of Georgia	Assistant Professor
200	Fox, Bonnie	University of Hawai'i
201	Francez, Itamar	University of Chicago	Associate Prof.
202	Francis, Elaine	Purdue University	Associate Professor
203	Franich, Kathryn	University of Delaware	Assistant Professor
204	Fraser, Katherine	University of the Basque Country	PhD Student
205	Freeman, Aaron	UPenn	Alum
206	Frishberg, Nancy
207	Fruehwald, Josef	University of Kentucky	Assistant Professor
208	Fuchs, Martin	Utrecht University	Postdoctoral Researcher
209	Gaby, Alice	Monash University
210	Gadanidis, Tim	University of Toronto	PhD student
211	Gal, Susan	University of Chicago	professor
212	Ganeshan, Ashwini	Ohio University	Assistant Professor
213	García León, Javier	University of North Carolina at Charlotte	Assistant Professor
214	Gardner, Bethany	Vanderbilt University	PhD student
215	Garrett, Andrew	UC Berkeley	Professor & LSA Fellow
216	Garza, Joyhanna	UCSB Linguistics	PhD Candidate
217	Gasser, Emily	Swarthmore College	Assistant Professor
218	Gautam, Vasundhara	Dialpad	Speech Recognition Engineer
219	Gebhard, Jessica
220	Gegg-Harrison, Whitney	University of Rochester	Associate Professor
221	Geguera, Ria Mai	NYU	Research Staff
222	Geissler, Christopher	Yale University	PhD Candidate
223	Gerald, JPB	CUNY - Hunter College
224	German, Austin	The University of Texas at Austin	PhD student
225	Getz, Heidi
226	Getzen, Cara		TESL Student
227	Gillon, Carrie	The Vocal Fries	Co-host
228	Glödstaf, Walther	University of Illinois Urbana Champaign	PhD student
229	Goad, Heather	McGill University	Associate Professor
230	Göbel, Alexander	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	Graduate Student
231	Gölz, Miriam	Brandeis University	graduate student
232	Gonering, Brennan	UC Davis	Graduate student
233	Gonzalez-Marquez, Monica	RWTH
234	Good, Jeff	University at Buffalo	Professor
235	Gorman, Kyle	Graduate Center, City University of New York
236	Govindarajan, Venkata S	University of Texas at Austin	PhD Student Computational Linguistics
237	Gowda, Yadav	MIT	PhD student
238	Grama, James	University of Duisburg-Essen	Research Fellow
239	Green, Caitlin
240	Green, Elizabeth	University of Texas at Austin
241	Greenbank, Emily	Victoria University of Wellington	Research Fellow
242	Greenwood, Anna	Google	Program Manager
243	Greeson, Daniel	Michigan State University	Graduate student
244	Grestenberger, Laura	University of Vienna	Assistant Professor
245	Grieve-Smith, Angus	The New School
246	Grishin, Peter	MIT	PhD Student
247	Grothues, Natalie	University of Colorado Boulder	PhD student
248	Guo, Alice	University of Toronto	Alum
249	Haber, Eli	University of Chicago
250	Hagedorn, Christina	City University of New York - College of Staten Island	Assistant Professor
251	Hagiwara, Robert	University of Manitoba
252	Hall-Lew, Lauren	University of Edinburgh	Reader
253	Hall, Daniel Currie	Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia	associate professor; LSA member
254	Halpert, Claire	University of Minnesota	Associate Professor
255	Hansen, Daniel	University of Chicago	PhD Student
256	Hao, Yiding	Yale University	PhD Candidate
257	Harley, Heidi	University of Arizona	Professor
258	Harper, Sarah	University of Southern California	PhD Candidate
259	Harvey, Meg	University of Arizona
260	Haslinger, Nina	University of Göttingen	PhD Candidate
261	Hauk, Bryn
262	Heap, David	University of Western Ontario	Associate Professor
263	Heath, Jevon	University of Pittsburgh	Director of Undergraduate Studies
264	Heaton, Hayley	University of Michigan	Linguistics PhD
265	Heider, Paul	Medical University of South Carolina	Senior Research Scientist
266	Henderson, Robert	University of Arizona	Associate Professor of Linguistics
267	Hendery, Rachel	Western Sydney University, Australia	Associate Professor
268	Henley, Katherine
269	Henry, Cassidy	University of Maryland
270	Hetherington, Rebecca	University of Melbourne
271	Hill, Angelica	University of Massachusetts Amherst	PhD student
272	Hogan, Caitlin	Queen Mary University of London	Graduate Student
273	Holgate, Eric	University of Texas at Austin	PhD. Candidate
274	Holladay, Kaden	University of Massachusetts Amherst	PhD Student
275	Hoops, Tracie	CSU Fullerton	MA student
276	Hope, Maxwell	University of Delaware	PhD student
277	Horesh, Uri	Achva Academic College
278	Hou, Lynn	University of California, Santa Barbara
279	Hughes, Brianne		MA Linguistics
280	Hyett, James	University of Toronto	Alum
281	Irvine, Melissa
282	Jacobs, Cassandra	University of Wisconsin	Postdoctoral Researcher
283	Jaggers, Zachary	University of Oregon	Postdoctoral Scholar
284	Jamieson, E	University of Edinburgh
285	Janoff, Arianna
286	Jenks, Peter	UC Berkeley	Associate Professor
287	Jensen, Monica	University of Washington	PhD Student
288	Jent, Brandon	University of Kentucky	Alumnus, MA Linguistic Theory and Typology
289	Jeong, Sunwoo	Seoul National University	Assistant professor
290	Jeretic, Paloma	New York University	PhD Candidate
291	Jerro, Kyle	University of Essex	Lecturer
292	Johnston, Alexandra	Georgetown University	Assistant Teaching Professor
293	Jones, Kyra
294	Jones, Taylor	University of Pennsylvania	PhD Graduate
295	Joyce, Taylor	The University of Texas at Austin	PhD Student
296	Kalin, Laura	Princeton University	Assistant Professor
297	Kane, Aurora	University of California, Berkeley	PhD Student
298	Karlin, Robin	UW-Madison	Postdoctoral researcher
299	Kasstan, Jonathan	University of Westminster	Assistant Professor
300	Kastner, Itamar	University of Edinburgh
301	Kennedy, Robert	University of California, Santa Barbara	Senior Lecturer
302	Khan, Sameer ud Dowla	Reed College	Associate Professor
303	Kiesling, Scott F.	University of Pittsburgh	Professor & Chair
304	Kim, Christina	University of Kent	Senior lecturer
305	Kim, Judy	Yale University	Postdoc
306	Kimper, Wendell	University of Manchester	Lecturer
307	Kirchner, Jessica	Google	Senior Linguist
308	Klassen, Jeffrey	University of Saskatchewan	Sessional Lecturer
309	Klausner, Lukas Daniel	St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences	Researcher
310	Klecha, Peet		Linguist
311	Koesterich, Niki	Tel Aviv University	Graduate Student
312	Kolozsvari, Robyn
313	Konnelly, Lex	University of Toronto	PhD Candidate
314	Kosse, Maureen	CU Boulder	Grad Student
315	Kostyszyn, Kalina	Stony Brook University	PhD student
316	Kotek, Hadas		Computational Linguist
317	Koulidobrova, Helen	Central Connecticut State University	Associate Professor
318	Koval, Pasha	University of Connecticut	PhD candidate
319	Kramer, Ruth	Georgetown University
320	Kraus, Kaj	Gallaudet University	PhD Student
321	Kraus, Kelsey	UC Santa Cruz	PhD graduate
322	Kucharska, Rosa	University of Manchester	Undergraduate student
323	Kuo, Annita
324	Kush, Dave	NTNU	Associate Professor
325	Lai, Catherine	University of Edinburgh
326	Lalonde, Codie	Carleton University	PhD Candidate
327	Lang, Benjamin	New York University Abu Dhabi
328	Laparle, Schuyler	UC Berkeley	PhD Candidate
329	Laperle, Samuel
330	Lassahn-Worrell, Price
331	Laturnus, Rebecca
332	Lau-Preechathammarach, Raksit	UC Berkeley	Graduate Student
333	Laurentine, Kyle
334	Lawson, Alexandra	University at Buffalo, SUNY	Graduate Student
335	Le Mené, Marine	University of Strasbourg	Postdoctoral Researcher
336	Leach, Hannah	University of Newcastle	Lecturer
337	Lee-Goldman, Russell	Google
338	Lee, Naomi	New York University	PhD student
339	Lee, Rebecca	University of Colorado Boulder	PhD student
340	Lee, Si Kai	UConn	PhD Student
341	Leonard, Wesley	University of California, Riverside	Associate Professor
342	Lesho, Marivic
343	Lesk, Katharina	University of Vienna	student
344	Levi, Susannah	NYU
345	Levinson, Lisa	University of Michigan	Lecturer
346	Lewis, Rebecca	University of Connecticut	PhD Student
347	Lewis, Tom	Georgia Southern University	Visiting Instructor
348	Li, Neh Gnetnemt	Jinggangshan University 井冈山大学	Research Scientist
349	Li, Noriyasu
350	Lilley, Kevin	The Ohio State University	PhD Student
351	Lindsey, Kate	Boston University
352	Liter, Adam	University of Maryland	Graduate student
353	Litovsky, Celia	Johns Hopkins University	PhD candidate
354	Little, Alexa	7000 Languages	Executive Director
355	Lloréns Monteserín, Mairym	University of Southern California	PhD Candidate
356	Loos, Cornelia	University of Hamburg	Postdoc
357	Love-Nichols, Jessica	Macalester College	Visiting Assistant Professor
358	Lowry, Cass	The Graduate Center, City University of New York	PhD student
359	Lu, Deedee
360	Lu, Jiayi	Stanford University	PhD student
361	Lucek, Stephen	University College Dublin	Postdoctoral Fellow
362	Lukyanenko, Cynthia	George Mason University	Term Assistant Professor
363	Lund, Gunnar	Harvard	PhD candidate
364	Lyskawa, Paulina	University of Maryland	PhD student
365	MacGregor, Caiden	La Trobe University	Graduate student
366	MacKenzie, Jordan	Georgetown University	PhD Candidate
367	MacKenzie, Laurel	New York University	Assistant Professor
368	Macknick, Anna	Princeton University	Undergraduate student
369	Mahan, Heather	UCSC	MA Linguistics graduate
370	Maier, Erik Hans	UC Berkeley	PhD Candidate
371	Mailhot, Frederic	Dialpad, Inc.	Computational Linguist
372	Malamud, Sophia A.	Brandeis University	Associate Professor
373	Maldonado, Mora	University of Edinburgh	Postdoctoral researcher
374	Manetta, Emily	University of Vermont	Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
375	Manfredi, Victor	Boston University	Visiting Researcher
376	Mangold, Ina Runa	University of Edinburgh	Postgraduate Student
377	Manke, Christine	California State University, Northridge	Alumna
378	Manning, Emma	Georgetown University	PhD Student
379	Mansfield, Courtney	University of Washington	PhD Candidate
380	Mantenuto, Iara	University of California, Los Angeles	PhD Candidate
381	Marino, D.	McGill University	Grad Student
382	Martí, Luisa	Queen Mary University of London	Senior Lecturer
383	Martin, Fabienne	Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
384	Martin, Katie	MIT	Graduate student
385	Martin, Tyree	University of Arizona	Ph.D. Student
386	Martinez del Rio, Aurora	University of Chicago	Graduate Student
387	Martinez, Randi	Yale University
388	Matsubara, Julie	University of Chicago, English Language Institute	Director
389	Mauk, Claude	University of Pittsburgh	Senior Lecturer
390	McBride, Justin T.	Northeastern State University	Assistant Professor
391	McCabe, Samantha
392	McClay, E. K.	Simon Fraser University	research staff
393	McCoy, Tom	Johns Hopkins University	Graduate student
394	McCready, Elin	Aoyama Gakuin University	Professor
395	McFadden, Thomas	Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
396	McGowan, Kevin	University of Kentucky	Assistant Professor
397	McKay, Isabel	University of Arizona
398	McPherson, Laura	Dartmouth College	Associate Professor
399	McVeigh, Joe	University of Jyväskylä	University teacher
400	Meadows, Tom	Queen Mary University of London	PhD Candidate
401	Medina, Jennifer
402	Merryweather, Marina
403	Mesh, Kate	Lund University	Postdoctoral Researcher
404	Meyer, Cherry	University of Michigan
405	Michael Gasser	Indiana University	Associate Professor Emeritus
406	Midgley, Daniel	Because Language	Co-presenter
407	Mieczkowski, Hannah	Stanford University	PhD candidate, Communication
408	Miller, Taylor	SUNY Oswego	Visiting Assistant Professor
409	Minnick, Lisa C.	Western Michigan University	Associate Professor
410	Mirea, Nicole	Northwestern University	PhD student
411	Molina, Malia	Carleton College
412	Monette, James		Data Scientist
413	Mooney, Kate	New York University
414	Moraski, Kendall	University of British Columbia	Alum
415	Morgan, Adam	NYU	Postdoc
416	Morikawa, Nora
417	Mufwene, Salikoko S.	University of Chicago	Professor of Linguistics
418	Munson, Benjamin	University of Minnesota	Professor and Chair
419	Murphy, AJ	University of South Carolina	PhD Student
420	Murray, Sarah	Cornell University	Associate Professor
421	Musica, Anne	Georgetown University	Alum
422	Musil, Jakub	The University of Edinburgh	PhD candidate
423	Nadathur, Prerna	Heinrich Heine University	Postdoctoral researcher
424	Nakamura, Megan	University of Florida
425	Namboodiripad, Savithry	University of Michigan	Assistant Professor
426	Narayan, Chandan	York University Linguistics	Assoc Professor
427	Nault, Charlène	Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)	MA student
428	Nederveen, Sander	Simon Fraser University/University of British Columbia	MA/PhD student
429	Nelson, Brett	University of Calgary	PhD Candidate
430	Nelson, Scott	Stony Brook University
431	Nesbitt, Monica	Dartmouth College	Postdoctoral Researcher
432	Newell, Heather	UQAM	Professor
433	Ng, Sara	University of Washington	PhD student
434	Nguyen, Chieu	Google Japan	Computational Linguist
435	Nguyen, Emma	University of Connecticut	PhD student
436	Niedzielski, Nancy	Rice University	Associate Professor
437	Nielsen, Kuniko	Oakland University	Associate Professor
438	Nölle, Jonas	University of Edinburgh	PhD Candidate
439	Noonan, Máire	Université de Montréal & Université du Québec à Montréal,	course lecturer
440	Norris, Mark
441	Nowlan, Melody
442	Nycz, Jennifer	Georgetown University	Associate Professor
443	O'Gorman, Tim	University of Massachusetts Amherst	Postdoctoral Researcher
444	O'Hara, Charlie	University of Southern California
445	O'Meara, Carolyn	Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México	Associate Research Professor
446	O'Neill, Brittney	York University	PhD student
447	Orfitelli, Robyn	University of Sheffield	Lecturer
448	Ostrove, Jason	UC Santa Cruz	Lecturer
449	Overfelt, Carly
450	Pabst, Katharina	University of Toronto	Ph.D. Candidate
451	Palma, Pauline	McGill University	PhD student
452	Papillon, Maxime	University of Maryand
453	Parrish, Alicia	New York University	Grad student
454	Parrott, Jeffrey Keith	Department of English and American Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc	Assistant Professor of Linguistics
455	Pasquinelli, Renni	Johns Hopkins University	PhD Student
456	Pasternak, Robert	Leibniz-Center for General Linguistics	Postdoctoral Researcher
457	Pater, Joe	University of Massachusetts Amherst	Professor
458	Patton, Colleen	University of Arizona	PhD Candidate
459	Paul, Ileana	University of Western Ontario	Associate Professor
460	Paullada, Amandalynne	University of Washington	PhD Candidate, Linguistics
461	Payne, Amanda
462	Payne, Elena	University of Cambridge	Student
463	Payne, Elinor	University of Oxford	Associate Professor
464	Pearce, Jo	University of Glasgow	PhD Student
465	Pearson, Hazel	Queen Mary University of London	Senior Lecturer
466	Perez Borbon, Luz	University of Massachusetts Boston	PhD student
467	Perfors, Amy	University of Melbourne	Associate Professor
468	Perleberg, Ellen	University of Washington	Undergraduate
469	Peters, Andrew	University of Toronto	PhD Candidate
470	Peters, Jacqueline	Concordia University	PhD. Candidate & Lecturer
471	Pham, Mike
472	Piggott, Glyne	McGill University	Emeritus Professor
473	Pillion, Betsy	University of Chicago	PhD Candidate
474	Pinzin, Francesco	Goethe Universität Frankfurt	Postdoctoral researcher
475	Plumb, May Helena	University of Texas at Austin	PhD Candidate
476	Pollio-Barbee, Harper	Brandeis University	Undergraduate Student
477	Potter, David	Morehead State University	Post-doc
478	Potvin, Gabrielle
479	Pratt, Teresa	San Francisco State University	Assistant Professor
480	Preminger, Omer	University of Maryland	Associate Professor
481	Prichard, Hilary		Linguistics PhD
482	Prickett, Brandon
483	Puderbaugh, Rebekka	University of Edinburgh	Teaching Fellow
484	Punske, Jeffrey	Southern Illinois University Carbondale	Associate Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies
485	Purse, Ruaridh	University of Pennsylvania	PhD Candidate
486	Raclaw, Joshua	West Chester University	Assistant Professor
487	Rademacher, Tess	Former LSA Intern
488	Ransom-Laud, Sarah Marie	University of Texas, Austin	Teaching Assistant & Graduate Student
489	Rasin, Ezer	Leipzig University	Postdoctoral Researcher
490	Rawlins, Kyle	Johns Hopkins University	Associate Professor
491	Reed, Paul E.	University of Alabama	Assistant professor
492	Rees, Alice	University of Edinburgh	Research Fellow
493	Rehrig, G.	UC Davis	Postdoctoral Researcher
494	Reiss, Charles	Concordia University, Montreal	Professor
495	Remirez, Emily	UC Berkeley	PhD Candidate
496	Rett, Jessica	UCLA	Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
497	Richardson-Todd, Aurore		PhD student
498	Richie, Russell	University of Pennsylvania	Postdoctoral Fellow
499	Ritch, Joseph	University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa	MA Student
500	Rivard, Alex	Carleton University
501	Roberts, Brice	University of California, Los Angeles	PhD Candidate
502	Roberts, Julie	University of Vermont	Professor and Director
503	Robinson, Mary	NYU	PhD student
504	Robles, Jessica S.	Loughborough University	Lecturer
505	Rodriguez, Alejandro	UC San Diego	PhD Student
506	Rodriguez, Jamilläh	University at Albany, SUNY	Ph.D. student
507	Ronkos, Danielle	The Graduate Center, CUNY	Ph.D. Candidate
508	Rosa, Jonathan	Stanford University	Associate Professor
509	Rosen, Nicole	University of Manitoba	Professor
510	Rosenau, Sara	CU Boulder	Graduate Student
511	Rouvier, Ruth	University of California, Berkeley	PhD Candidate
512	Rouvinen, Alina		Student
513	Rowe, Margaret Anne	Georgetown University	Alum
514	Royer, Adam	UCLA Linguistics	PhD Candidate
515	Royer, Justin	McGill University	PhD Student
516	Sampson, Tory	University of California, San Diego	PhD Student
517	Sanchez, Roger	Universidade Federal de Belo Horizonte, Brazil	PhD
518	Sandoval, Starr		graduate student
519	Sandy, Abu El Adas	NYU	PhD student/worker
520	Sarver, Isaac	Michigan State University	Graduate Student
521	Sayeed, Asad	University of Gothenburg	Assistant Professor
522	Scarpace, Daniel	University of Texas at Arlington	Assistant Professor of Instruction
523	Schaefer, Florian	Humboldt Universität zu Berlin	Lecturer
524	Scheffler, Tatjana	University of Potsdam	Postdoctoral Researcher
525	Schlegl, Lisa	Univeristy of Toronto	PhD Student
526	Schneider-Zioga, Patricia	California State University, Fullerton	Associate Professor
527	Schneier, Joel	University of Central Florida	Lecturer
528	Schwartz, Richard G.	CUNY Graduate Center	Presidential Professor
529	Seals, Corinne	Victoria University of Wellington	Senior Lecturer
530	Sears, Cheyenne	Ohio University	Alum
531	Semushina, Nina	UCSD	PhD candidate
532	Seong, Jihye	The State University of New York at Buffalo	Ph.D. Student
533	Shames, Kayla Matthea	Cornell University	Undergraduate Student
534	Shan, Chung-chieh	Indiana University	Associate Professor
535	Shapiro, Mary	Truman State University	Professor of Linguistics
536	Sheen, Jisu	Yale University	Postbaccalaureate researcher
537	Shenkar, Julia	George Mason University	Alum
538	Sherley-Appel, Clara	UCSC, UVA	Linguistics MA
539	Showers-Curtis, Katka	University of Wisconsin - Madison	Graduate Student
540	Shukla, Mohinish
541	Shulist, Sarah	Queen’s University	Associate Professor
542	Sichel, Ivy	UC Santa Cruz	Associate Professor
543	Sicoli, Mark A	University of Virginia	Assistant Professor
544	Simpson, Erin	UCL Institute of Education	PhD student
545	Sims, Nandi	Ohio State University	PhD Candidate
546	Singerman, Adam	Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago	Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
547	Sirna, Sarah	Michigan State University
548	Skilton, Amalia	University of Texas at Austin	Postdoctoral Researcher
549	Slade, Benjamin	University of Utah	Associate Professor
550	Slayton, Aliya	University of Hawai’i at Mānoa	PhD student
551	Slobe, Tyanna	University of California Los Angeles	PhD Candidate
552	Smith, Alexander D.	University of North Texas
553	Smith, Barry	University at Buffalo	Professor & Chair
554	Smith, James
555	Smith, Kaylin	Michigan State University	PhD candidate
556	Sneller, Betsy	Michigan State University	Assistant Professor
557	Snider, Todd		Postdoctoral Research Fellow
558	Soldaini, Luca	Amazon	Applied Scientist
559	Sommerlot, Carly J.	University of Texas at Arlington	Ph.D. Candidate
560	Sonnenschein, Aaron Huey	California State University Los Angeles.	Professor
561	Sprenger, Anna-Marie	UChicago	graduate student
562	Staicov, Adina	Hiroshima University	Assistant Professor
563	Stalley, Sean
564	Stephens, Heather	University of Toronto	PhD Candidate
565	Stickles, Elise	University of British Columbia	Assistant Professor
566	Stromdahl, Lars	University of Delaware	PhD Student
567	Strother-Garcia, Kristina	Bloomsburg University	Assistant Professor
568	Subtirelu, Nicholas	Georgetown University	Assistant Professor
569	Sullivant, Ryan	University of Texas at Austin
570	Sundaresan, Sandhya
571	Sunil Arvindam, Vishal
572	Surbatovich, Amy		Editor
573	Sutherland, Paul	American Philosophical Society	Archivist, Linguist
574	Szabó, Ildikó Emese	New York University	PhD candidate
575	Tabachnick, Guy	New York University	graduate student
576	Tallman, Adam	CNRS	Postdoctoral researcher
577	Talmina, Natalia	Johns Hopkins University	PhD student
578	Taniguchi, Ai	University of Toronto Mississauga	Assistant Professor
579	Taylor, Katherine	The Ohio State University	Alum
580	Thomas, Airica	Northwestern University	PhD Student
581	Thomas, Jenelle	University of Oxford
582	Thomas, William	The Ohio State University	PhD Student
583	Thompson, Anie	H5/University of California Santa Cruz	Consulting Linguist and PhD alum
584	Thompson, Ellen	Florida International University	Professor
585	Thompson, Katrina	University of Wisconsin-Madison	Professor
586	Thoms, Gary	New York University	Assistant Professor
587	Thornes, Tim	Boise State University	Associate Professor
588	Tomlin, Nicholas	UC Berkeley	PhD Student
589	Torbert, Benjamin	University of Missouri-St Louis	Associate professor
590	Torgersen, Henrik	University of Oslo	MA student
591	Tran, Marcellin	University of Toronto	Student
592	Travis, Lisa	McGill University	Professor Emeritus
593	Tulsyan, Purnima
594	Turnbull, Rory	Newcastle University	Lecturer
595	Turner, Gerry	York University	PhD Candidate
596	Turner, Robin	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	PhD student
597	Twiner, Nicholas	Stanford University	Graduate Student
598	Tyler, Matthew	Yale University	PhD candidate
599	Tyrone, Martha	Long Island University	Associate Professor
600	Ulfsbjorninn, Shanti	University of Deusto, Bilbao.	Associate Professor
601	Umbal, Pocholo	University of Toronto	PhD Candidate
602	Usta, Betül Seda	University of Stirling	PhD student
603	Valentinsson, Mary-Caitlyn	Appalachian State University	Visiting Assistant Professor
604	van den Akker, M.	Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands	Undergraduate
605	VanderStouwe, Chris	Boise State University	Lecturer
606	Vaughan, Alfie	University of Cambridge	Undergraduate
607	Vihman, Marilyn	University of York	Professor
608	Vihman, Virve	University of Tartu	Associate Professor
609	Villanueva, Mercedes Eileen
610	Vittalbabu, Chandru	Sunnyvale School District	Speech-Language Pathologist and Linguistics graduate
611	Vu, Mai Ha	University of Delaware	Alum
612	Walkden, George	University of Konstanz	Professor of Linguistics
613	Warner, Natasha	University of Arizona	Professor and Head
614	Warren, Isaac	Georgetown University	MS Student
615	Wassink, Alicia	University of Washington
616	Weinberg, Miranda	Swarthmore College	Visiting Assistant Professor, Linguistics
617	Weirick, Josh	Purdue University	PhD student
618	Wells, Alexus	Georgetown University
619	Whitcomb, Kathleen
620	Williams, Adina		Research Scientist
621	Wilson, Brianna	University of Chicago	PhD Student
622	Wilson, Fiona	University of Toronto	Graduate Student
623	Wilson, Scott Keohookalani	Pukyong National University	Lecturer
624	Wing, Dakota	York University	PhD Candidate
625	Wingett, Hannah	Georgetown University	Alum, BA Linguistics + MS Theoretical Linguistics
626	Winterstein, Grégoire	UQAM	Professor
627	Wöhrmann, Frithjof	University of Georgia	PhD Student
628	Wolf, Simon	Unaffiliated	Independent Researcher and Consultant
629	Wood, Skye	Virginia Tech	Alum
630	Wright, Kelly Elizabeth	University of Michigan	PhD Candidate
631	Yeaton, Jeremy	UC Irvine	PhD student in Language Science
632	Yoshida Nuttall, Kelly	Boise State University
633	Young, Eris		Writer
634	Yuan, Michelle	University of California, San Diego	Assistant Professor
635	Zaitsu, Anissa	Stanford University	PhD student
636	Zimman, Lal	UC Santa Barbara	Associate Professor of Linguistics
637	Zompi, Stanislao
638	Zweig, Eytan	University of York	Lecturer

[1] Dr. Pinker also frequently uses the word race in a manner that ‘dogwhistle’ appears far too weak a term for, for instance when claiming that “Every geneticist knows that the ‘Race doesn't exist’ dogma is a convenient PC 1/4-truth.” As for the veracity of this claim, we defer to this statement by the American Society of Human Genetics.