From late 2017 to 2018, three scholars wrote and submitted to academic journals 20 fake papers focused on gender and sexual identity—what the authors call “grievance studies.” Seven journals published their submissions. The scholars’ stated objective for this experiment was to expose the farcical nature of these “disciplines” and their replacement of scholarly rigor with an overt political agenda devoid of academic seriousness.
The hoax not only damaged the reputations of the publishing journals, but it also challenged the academic integrity of identity-based “grievance studies.” Such fields may well be part of universities’ overall mission to expand areas of inquiry, study, and research. Reality, however, suggests that they are more about increasing staff and faculty diversity hires and enhancing political power than about perpetuating knowledge.
Most external observers who are numbed by the absurdities of contemporary academia likely believe that the political damage emanating from identity studies is contained to the civilian Ivory Tower. In the five years since the hoax, however, the grievance chorus has breached the walls and escaped traditional academia. Corporations, government, and even the military and military academies are now true believers, a fact embodied by ubiquitous Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and offices...
To read more visit The James G. Martin Center For Academic Renewal.
As we watched the academies get worse, we stood by, idle, until they fell to the Left. It's insane. Same thing Americans are doing with the myriad other problems the Democrats and Biden are visiting on us. We just watch it happen.