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Simon & Schuster has a Mike Pence-shaped blowup on its hands. On Monday, higher-ups at the publishing house received a petition signed by over 200 employees, as well as more than 3,500 outside supporters, the Wall Street Journal reports, demanding that it stop cutting deals with authors tied to Donald Trumps administration and cancel Pences forthcoming memoir. When S&S chose to sign Mike Pence, we broke the publics trust in our editorial process, and blatantly contradicted previous public claims in support of Black and other lives made vulnerable by structural oppression, the letter read, per the Journal.

While the petition was not formally submitted until Monday, word of its circulation internally and on social media last week prompted Jonathan Karp, the companys chief executive, to address its demands in a note to staffers. We come to work each day to publish, not to cancel, Karp reportedly wrote in his letter, dismissing the calls as counter to the very core of our mission to publish a diversity of voices and perspectives. Mondays petition challenged the notion that employee pushback is in this case a matter of differing opinions, accusing Pence of supporting racist, sexist, and homophobic policies during his time in office and urging Simon & Schuster not to treat the Trump administration as a normal chapter in American history.

The petition also reportedly calls on Simon & Schuster to sever distribution ties with Post Hill Press, a conservative book publisher. That demand builds upon opposition to a Post Hill Press book written by a Louisville police officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylorbacklash that led Simon & Schuster two weeks ago to announce that they would not distribute the title. That decision was immediate, unprecedented, and responsive to the concerns we heard from you and our authors, Karp reportedly wrote in last weeks memo to staffers. Yet he continued to reject calls to cut off all distribution ties with the conservative partner, citing contractual obligations and the need to respect the terms of our agreements with our client publishers.

Earlier this month, Pences reported multimillion-dollar deal with Simon & Schuster drew attention to the host of issuesfrom ethical to logisticalthat major publishing houses must grapple with when it comes to signing members of Trumps orbit. Industry sources cited opposition from not only staff but consumers and talent as a reason to avoid taking on such clients. Well-known Black writers were among the several thousand outside signatories of Mondays petition, according to the Journal, including two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, who has published five books with Simon & Schuster.

The recent Post Hill Press decision was the second such evaluation the publisher made due to outcry over conservative-penned titles this year. Following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Simon & Schuster scrapped plans to publish Senator Josh Hawleys forthcoming book, citing the Missouri lawmakers role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom. (A conservative publishing house has since taken up Hawleys title.) As Axios notes, hundreds of executives, authors, and other publishing professionals signed an open letter of intent in the wake of the insurrection stating, no one who incited, suborned, instigated, or otherwise supported the January 6, 2021 coup attempt should have their philosophies remunerated and disseminated through our beloved publishing houses. Conservatives have often lumped that criticism into the broader trend of so-called cancel cultureas have some industry sources, albeit anonymouslya debate that Axios reports is nevertheless causing publishers to look closely at who and what they give a platform to, as well as the potential fallout from that choice.

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Simon & Schuster Will Die on the Hill That Is Mike Pences Multimillion-Dollar Book Deal - Vanity Fair