> Steinberger replied later that day. Half his board, he explained unhappily, had told him that unless he pulled the article, they would all resign and “harass the journal” he had founded 25 years earlier “until it died.” Faced with the loss of his own scientific legacy, he had capitulated.
It's sad that these lunatics have the power to do these things, but that's why people appease them.
The thing is, a lot of these people don't have the power to do the things they claim. Or at least, they'd be perfectly replaceable by those who'd do a better job.
Indeed, the only reason this sort of crap happens is because organisations and companies don't have the guts to tell the moral police to sod off. If they did, and their tactics stopped working, many of these issues would go away.