DPS has been closely following the process by which the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) has been implementing the Executive Order (EO) 14151 regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the US federal government, specifically with respect to websites maintained by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) on behalf of planetary science community and its Assessment/Analysis groups (AGs).
LPI has been removing links to and mentions of conference abstracts and AG documents from past years, if they include statements about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility or related workforce issues – including the full workforce session that was just solicited and convened at the 2025 LPSC. An Astrophysics Data System/Science Explorer (ADS/SciX) team has identified around 1,000 broken links to LPI-hosted content associated with LPSC and other meeting abstracts, though the number of affected documents may be smaller. A large segment of the planetary community received a statement from USRA regarding the removal of DEI Content from LPI Websites on 8 May (link hereafter), which does not satisfy the community’s concerns and questions.
On May 19, DPS leadership met with the USRA and LPI leadership to further understand these actions. USRA confirmed that these actions were recommended by their own legal counsel as necessary to comply with the aforementioned EO, and that neither NASA or any other federal agency had provided direction to take these actions. In order to determine which abstracts and other materials to remove, LPI staff searched on all permutations of DEI(A) and component words and synonyms. Tagged materials were then reviewed by a person to confirm that they referred to DEI work. Links were removed, but saved in a list and can be restored at a future time. USRA has released a Fact Sheet clarifying the sequence of events during removal of DEI content.
The conference and AG programs, abstracts, and other documents held by LPI constitute a vital record of past community work in research, community development, and consensus building that needs to be available for current and future researchers. USRA plans to reach out to first authors of affected materials and provide them with copies of the files. However, the impacts are not limited to the authors, but to the entire science community who looks at the record. While DPS recognizes that USRA believes that it acted in the interest of protecting its stakeholders, the removal of this record is nevertheless a violation of the individual and collective intellectual record of planetary science and of community trust.
Community-led efforts are underway to preserve this record, such as by the ADS/SciX team. The DPS encourages the planetary science community to check their own and colleagues’ records, to foster this restoration. If you discover a broken link to your LPI abstract or other scientific publication, email [email protected] so that they can investigate and, if possible, restore access to the content.
DPS has been working with AAS and investigating possibilities to alleviate the consequences of these removals. In the meantime, planetary science members within academia may ascertain whether their institution is a member of USRA and consider raising this issue with their institutional representative(s): https://www.usra.edu/about-usra/university-oversight/