Erin Overbey, Archivist at New Yorker, Fired for Speaking Out on Equality Issues

Experienced archivist, Erin Overbey, was fired from The New Yorker.

She tweeted on 7/27/2022:

So the @New Yorker has fired me, effective immediately. I’m speaking with the union about potentially filing a grievance on the termination.

It is a long twitter feed, but w/in it she notes she is earning 20% less than her predecessor who did not have archival experience.

Overbey notes: 

The

@NewYorker

 is, in many ways, a wonderful institution. But it’s also ground zero for a kind of regressive literary gatekeeping, class exclusivity & old-school cultural thinking that simply no longer have any relation to, or frankly relevance in, the modern world as we know it.

 

Overbey has been calling out the New Yorker for a good while:

“This shit is just embarrassing”

The New Yorker’s archive editor breaks down the print mag’s dismal diversity stats

“As someone who’s done the research, seen all the numbers, I can tell you that things are simply not changing quickly enough to present real, concrete progress.” 

In Intelligencer, 9/14.2021:

The New Yorker Archivist Erin Overbey on Her Byline-Diversity Project

By Choire Sicha