The editorial board of an architecture journal has resigned after its parent association cancelled an upcoming theme issue titled “Palestine.”
The Journal of Architectural Education planned to publish the issue in fall 2025, according to an archived version of the call for papers, which refers to the “Zionist, militarist, carceral, and capitalist regime of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.”
“In the face of the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, this issue of the Journal of Architectural Education calls for urgent reflections on this historical moment’s implications for design, research, and education in architecture,” the call for papers read.
On February 28, the nonprofit Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, which owns the journal, released a statement saying it was halting the issue for increased risks due to “new actions by the U.S. federal administration.” The statement listed “potential risks” such as “personal threats to journal editors, authors, and reviewers, as well as to ACSA volunteers and staff” as well as “legal and financial risks facing the organization.” ACSA did not respond to our request for comment to expand on what these risks might be.
In his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump suggested Palestinians be permanently relocated from Gaza, and claimed the United States would take over the Gaza Strip. This week immigration agents arrested a Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, and Trump withheld funding from the school, saying it failed to protect Jewish students from anti-semitism. Trump claimed more arrests would follow.
The Palestine issue’s call for papers has been removed from the journal’s website.
The same day the ACSA released its statement, the organization fired McLain Clutter, executive editor of the journal, whose term was set to end in 2026. He told The Architect’s Newspaper he was fired for refusing to endorse the ACSA’s decision to halt publication. “ACSA will be on the wrong side of history, and they leave faculty at member institutions with little reason for faith in their support,” he told the newspaper.
Clutter did not respond to our request for comment.
In a post on X, Omar Jabary Salamanca, a former member of the editorial board and a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University in Belgium, posted a letter addressed to the ACSA Board of Directors announcing the board’s “collective resignation, effective immediately.”
According to the letter, the resignation resulted from “insulting treatment of its theme editors and the anti-Palestinian nature of their interrogation” as well as “wanton disrespect for the peer-review process.”
“Over the past few months, the ACSA has been unwilling to uphold its commitment to the values of academic freedom and ethical scholarship, contradicting the organization’s stated commitment to equity and justice,” they wrote.
The letter is unsigned, so whether the entire current board has resigned is unclear. At press time, the journal’s editorial board page returned “Page not found.” Social media posts by Salamanca, Ozayr Saloojee, and Zoé Samudzi indicate they are among those resigning. The resigning board members plan to host a town hall meeting on March 13 to discuss the decisions and their implications.
Jennifer McMillan, the vice president of external communications for Taylor & Francis, which publishes the journal, told us in an email the decision to cancel the issue “was made by the ACSA Board. As their publishing partners we are respectful of the decision they have made.”
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