NASA has been accused of dismissing concerns raised by the astronomy community over the controversial naming of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as evidence of its internal investigation and the decision process to not rename it have been brought to light thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the journal Nature by journalist Alexandra Witze.

A petition was started by astronomers to rename the telescope in early 2021, alleging Webb had been complicit in the firing of LGBT federal employees in his role as Under Secretary of State during the 1950s and '60s prior to his time at NASA. NASA launched an investigation but ultimately announced it would not be changing the name because it had found no evidence to support the accusations.

The FOI request revealed a series of internal NASA documents from between January 1 and October 13, 2021, that demonstrates the current NASA administration was aware of the dismissal of at least one gay employee while Webb was NASA chief.

Since 2015, evidence has come to light linking Webb’s work at the State Department with what is known as the Lavender Scare, the state-sponsored anti-LGBT purge that forced gay and bisexual scientists and civil servants from US federal jobs because of their sexuality in the 1950s and '60s.

Thousands of astronomers signed the petition asking for a review of the naming of the telescope to separate the next-generation instrument from someone linked to a dark chapter in American history. The petition was led by Dr Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, astrophysicist Dr Sarah Tuttle, astronomer Dr Lucianne Walkowicz, and astrophysicist Dr Brian Nord.

NASA agreed to conduct a review and publish its findings. In September 2021, NASA announced that the new flagship space telescope would keep its controversial name while not releasing its report or any information about its investigation.

“We have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement sent to IFLScience and shared with just a few other news outlets but not with the public.

IFLScience followed this statement up by asking to see the findings of the review and received this reply: “We truly don’t have anything to report because our investigation hasn’t found anything,” from Karen Fox, Senior Science Communications Officer for NASA.

In an email dated April 11, 2021, Dr Eric Smith, the JWST Deputy Program Director, was made aware that a NASA employee, Clifford Norton, was fired in 1963 because his supervisors suspected him of being gay. In court proceedings, the NASA Official who fired him, a Mr Garbarini, describes him as a “competent employee” doing “very good” work and inquired if there was any way of keeping him on. It was Garbarini’s advisers who told him that firing suspected homosexual employees was “a custom within the agency”. The email to Smith stresses that this paragraph “sounds pretty bad.”

In response to the FOI revelations, Walkowicz, Prescod-Weinstein, Tuttle, and Nord released a statement accusing NASA of hiding findings that affirmed Webb's homophobia and that the space agency "gaslit" people in September with what it chose to — and not to — announce. They also state that the firing of Norton was either a decision taken by Webb himself or with his full knowledge as Administrator.

Furthermore, they argue that the internal documents show that NASA had received several strong recommendations based on Webb’s history to change the telescope’s name, and that the agency announced in September there was no evidence found while evidence had both been put forward and NASA historians were still looking into it.

“As a group of scientists, we find this avoidance of actual evidence at one of the world’s leading scientific organizations to be deeply disconcerting," they said in the statement. "Between the four of us, we have held internships, fellowships, grants, and advisory and leadership roles on NASA projects. We are not detached observers. This is harm from a community we have committed substantive time to and which we are passionate about."

Online, people are again raising the question of what kind of example the agency is setting for members of the LGBTQ+ community in STEM. Only a few weeks ago, NASA came under criticism for removing the ability to include pronouns in employees' IDs at the NASA Goddard Institute, which some described as an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.   

Research shows that LGBTQ+ people in STEM are still more likely to experience professional devaluation, exclusion, and harassment than their cisgender heterosexual colleagues. The American Physics Society reported in 2015 that one-third of LGBTQ+ physicists were advised to remain in the closest, and 40 percent of trans workers in physics departments are misgendered in their workplace.

IFLScience has contacted NASA for further comments and questions and will update this article in due course. 

[H/T: Nature]