Written: April 1(!), 2023
I am fully supportive of encouraging diversity, and affirmative action is a very good thing, in order to make up for historical inequalities. Also I believe that people who are accused of sexual harassment, if found guilty, should be punished in some way. But the three mathematical societies went too far by maintaining a black list of mathematicians who were accused of inappropriate behavior, and automatically "desk-reject" any submissions by members of that list. Of course they would not admit it, and the person who told me about this list obviously wishes to remain anonymous (or he/she/they/it would be added to it). They already have a template "rejection slip" that they use to reject, without any refereeing, papers that they deem "not important enough", and since "importance" is in the eyes to the beholder, there is nothing the poor author can do. But, for those submissions by authors who belong to that black list (it suffices that one of the coauthors is an alleged harasser) they use the same template.
Obviously, mathematical ability and moral virtue are at best uncorrelated (and very possibly, somewhat negative), so this practice should stop immediately.