Grievance Studies Reveal University Corruption With Hoaxes

Publications such as "Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography" and "Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy" accepted the articles. The first published the study of the dog park.

These three publications are considered to be leading products in their field, they said, and their publication exceeded their hopes.

"I am deeply disappointed to learn that two documents recently submitted to Hypatia are apparently hoaxes. The journal relies on a process of double anonymous peer review to inform its editorial decisions. Our reviewers provided each author with thoughtful comments on how to review his work. Referees spend a lot of time and effort writing meaningful reviews, and the idea that people would submit fraudulent academic material violates many ethical and academic standards, "said Ann Garry, Acting Editor-in-Chief of Hypatia. .

Esther Rothblum, professor of women's studies at San Diego State University and editor-in-chief of "Fat Studies", who published an article claiming that bodybuilding was discriminatory against obesity, did not respond to a request for comment .

All published trials have been peer-reviewed, although some have been removed by the publisher after the publication of their authors.

When they started, Mr. Boghossian said that he and his colleagues were "resigned to the academic state" and that they did not doubt that they would have a depressing success.

Yet, they were sometimes surprised by the degree of acceptance.

In the video, we see the three convulsed laughing at the acceptance of the dog plot. Mr. Lindsay read aloud that a critic was concerned that researchers had invaded dogs' privacy by inspecting their genitals.

The fact that such nonsense can not only be accepted for publication, but also gain praise highlights the real problem that "grievance studies" have subordinated the truth to acceptable political positions.

"It's like religious architecture in their minds, where" privilege "is sin," privilege "is diabolical," Lindsay said in the video.

Using pseudonyms, they wrote 20 articles and the publications sent all but one application to a full peer review. Seven have been accepted and four have been published so far.

If their work had not been exposed by the Wall Street Journal and a background check that had not verified some of the references pseudonyms, at least a dozen books have been published, say specialists.

The three wrote a longer article about their project – "Academic Studies on Grievances and Scholarship Corruption" – published in Aero magazine, under the responsibility of Ms. Pluckrose.

The news was not all bad for newspapers.

When they began their project in August 2017, Mr. Boghossian and his associates wrote completely fictitious documents, hoaxes like that of the physicist of New York University, Alan Sokal, which had been published in "Social Text" in 1996. But these were rejected, and by Thanksgiving. Mr. Boghossian said his team was beginning to worry.

They have abandoned false papers in favor of real documents, twisting them to the extreme, then presenting them with sophisticated language that puts pressure on the appropriate political buttons.

By calling the field "grievance studies", the trio would take a real subject – Plato in one case, teaching practices in primary school in another – and then push it to filter slogans such as "privilege" white "or" rape culture ". the doors opened suddenly.

By taking intellectual pursuit as hostage, much of the work produced by university departments, such as queer theory and racial studies, has turned more to propaganda than intellectual rigor and, in the process, has perverted the noble goals they are supposed to defend, said Lindsay.

"It does not continue the work of the civil rights movement; it corrupts, "he said, describing the scholarship peddled by the" grievance studies "departments as" social snake oil ".

The reaction of their colleagues was mixed, said the three. Some scholars have seen their work as a necessary awakening, but others have described it as mischief or unethical.

In the Wall Street Journal article, the three predicted a disastrous future within the academy. Ms. Pluckrose predicted that she will not be accepted into a doctoral program and Mr. Lindsay expects to become an "academic pariah".

Mr. Boghossian, who published a book titled "A Manual for the Creation of Atheists," said he feared being fired, but he said Wednesday night that he had not had new directors.