This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has ever worked in academia. Certain names have it much easier to publish than others. It's a self-fulfilling prophec

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has ever worked in academia. Certain names have it much easier to publish than others. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Double-blind reviews aren't common in all fields (e.g. everything IEEE) which leads to a lot of bias right from the start: Seniority, country, university, ...