Do you think putting white and male students on the floor in chains as a form of “experiential reparations” is a good educational opportunity? How about inviting them to listen and learn in silence throughout their course? We don’t.

Within the academic fields utilizing what we’ve called “grievance studies,” however, these ideas are perfectly acceptable. We discovered this by submitting a paper on feminist educational theory to arguably the most respected feminist philosophy journal in the world, Hypatia.

We did this as a part of a year-long probe to find out how much certain political biases have taken root within a small but powerful sector of academia. Over the course of that year, we submitted 20 papers to journals that study topics of identity like gender, race, and sexuality, which we feared has been corrupted by a form of political activism that puts political grievances ahead of finding truth.