Letter: Astronomer Vera Rubin: A DEI activist

Thanks to Edward Espinoza (Letter to the Editor, History rewritten, Feb 17, 2025) for noting Trump’s anti-DEI crusade has prompted the federally funded Rubin Observatory to purge information on renowned astronomer Vera Rubin’s advocacy for women and minorities in science from its website, rubinobservatory.org. Pro Publica, which first reported the Observatory’s changes to Rubin’s bio, provides the altered text on its website. In her biography of Rubin, Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, science writer Ashley Yeager recounts Rubin’s persistence despite early dismissals of her work and widespread sexism in science. Rubin’s work at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, starting in the 1960s, led to the discovery of dark matter. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory on a mountaintop in Chile, where the skies are exceptionally clear, is the first national observatory named for a woman.