Joyce Carol Oates once again raised eyebrows on Twitter, this time with a tweet suggesting young White men are being discriminated against in publishing.

On Sunday, the prolific novelist tweeted, “(a friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested. this is heartbreaking for writers who may, in fact, be brilliant, & critical of their own ‘privilege.’)

Her tweet was a retweet of her own post linking to an op-ed by Pamela Paul of the New York Times, in which the former book review editor argued that “self-censorship” was becoming a problem in the literary world.

Oates’ tweet was criticized by readers who pointed out that White men have dominated American publishing for years.

Crime novelist S.A. Cosby responded, “Your friend is a liar. Writers of color are still in the minority when it comes to debuts and certainly when it comes to advances. I think what u are mistaking for oppression is equality but it feels like oppression because you’ve never known any other way.”

And Lisa Lucas, the publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books and one of the few high-level Black executives in book publishing, tweeted, “Hi! This isn’t a thing! Repeat: It is NOT A THING. (And I think I’m part of the ‘wave’ that has everyone so shook.) Having extraordinary access to something no one else had access too is a hard thing to shake. So is fear.”

Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.