Grievance studies: how liberal ideologues have poisoned the academia to push their hate based agenda

[Basil II the B.S]

You might have heard the following: systemic oppression, institutionalized racism, glass ceiling, internalized misogyny, white privilege, toxic masculinity or similar wordly constructs, popularized by liberal politicians and activists. Where do they come from? Broadly speaking, the ideology called postmodernism, a neo-Marxist framework, whose core authors include Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, alongside a number of other French intellectuals.

A key component of post-modern ideology is that there are no truths, only interpretations. This idea is wildly appreciated among both radical feminists and transgender activists, pushing the idea of ''blank slate'', negating the idea that there's such thing as biological gender or biological differences between male and female body, indeed only what the person perceives matters.
Another key concept of post-modernism is that the reality can be ultimately be read as a power struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. This bounces off traditional Marxist ideas, where the oppressor was the bourgeoise, while the oppressed was the proletariat. In post-modernism, Western societies are a power struggle between the oppressors, white, heterosexual, males, and the oppressed, non-white, lgbt, women. The entirety of Western democratic institutions including the legal system is the result of the oppressor's work, thus Western democracies are white supremacist, patriarchal and non-inclusive, the solution is to tear them apart.

This conceptual framework is taught in universities in the following disciplines: literature, anthropology, gender studies, sexuality studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies. The outcome of the academic research in these fields has given birth to the terms I listed at the beginning. Diversity and inclusion policies, now heavily pushed in both the academia and corporations are entirely based on the research stemming from this fields.

These are the ''grievance studies''. And they are all frauds.

3 academics (Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, left-leaning themselves, before the usual suspects try to paint this as an alt right conspiracy), tired of the insane climate in the academia, decided to create hoax studies, replicating the ideologically charged language of these fields and submitted them for peer-review and publication.

Out of the 20 hoax papers published, 7 were accepted, including 1 rewarded for ''excellent scholarships'' and another 7 were under review, before the Wall Street Journal found out what was going on and published the story, causing journals to retract the published papers and the remaining one to simply half the process.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fake-ne...mia-1538520950

The following papers are the ones accepted:

-Helen Wilson (pseudonym) (2018). "Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon".
-Richard Baldwin (borrowed identity) (2018). "Who Are They to Judge? Overcoming Anthropometry and a Framework for Fat Bodybuilding".
-M. Smith (pseudonym) (2018). "Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria and Transphobia through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use".
-Richard Baldwin (borrowed identity) (2018). "An Ethnography of Breastaurant Masculinity: Themes of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, Male Control, and Masculine Toughness in a Sexually Objectifying Restaurant"
-Richard Baldwin (borrowed identity). "When the Joke Is on You: A Feminist Perspective on How Positionality Influences Satire
-Carol Miller (pseudonym). "Moon Meetings and the Meaning of Sisterhood: A Poetic Portrayal of Lived Feminist Spirituality"
-Maria Gonzalez, and Lisa A. Jones (pseudonyms). "Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism"

The third one argued that straight men were willing to date trans-people if they underwent a treatment of anal pentration with toys (!). The first one argued that rape culture could be observed in dogs and that treating heterosexual men like dogs, including leash, could be helpful to stop rape culture. The last one is simply a rewriting of Hitler's Mein Kampf, from a feminist perspective, replacing Jews with males. It was initially rejected because the author was a white feminists, and it was suggested it should include the intersectional perspective of a black feminist thus arguing against the oppression of white males, not just males.

This papers were submitted to prominent journals which adopt the post-modern framework to explain the world. Unlike standard scientific research, here the conclusion always predetermined: the oppression, the patriarchy, white supremacy or whatever else, is deeply ingrained in instutions, language, behaviour and people. As such, a non-white lgbt individual experience should be always valued above those of individuals belonging to oppressor categories, on the basis that they are privileged due to their race, gender or sexual orientation. To correct such privilege, positive discrimination is necessary.

Wiki link for your fun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_Studies_affair

Have you ever heard liberals bragging how the majority of the academia leans their way? Well, no wonders, this is what they do. A complete destruction of the peer-reviewing process and the scientific method (which btw is also white supremacist according to these studies).

While the majority of this ideological nonsense so far has been limited to humanities, there's a heavy pressure for intersectionality to be adopted in biology, behavioural science and mathematics. The authors have received enormous support by fellow academics, but the majority of them prefers to remain anonymous out of fear of being reprimanded by the diversity and equity officers of the academic administration and have their career ruined.
So, how do we stop liberals from destroying human knowledge? Is it too late for Western universities?
--------------------------------------------------------
edit: as an example of the pressure on natural sciences to push this nonsense

CERN recently adopted a diversity and inclusion policy as well. They run a conference to explain the alleged benefits of gender diversity, one of the physicists actually checks the data, concludes there's no discrimination against women at all and that the whole argument is bogus; remarks: ''physics was invented by men, it's not a club by invitation''. Outcome: usual liberal freakout, he's suspended from CERN.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45709205

A top tier physicist with over 42k citations suspended because he demonstrated that gender barriers in his field are a myth.

[Gaidin]

So, how do we stop liberals from destroying human knowledge? Is it too late for Western universities?

Liberals will destroy their own careers without your help. Statistically they're more likely to by the numbers if they get a little too carried away with their research and positions.



Of course, these facts totally wreck your paranoid position of a liberal invasion of the West. Don't let that stop you though.

[Katsumoto]

Moved to Academy.

[Love Mountain]

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19301/data

Data on doctorates issues by year. Academia leans extremely heavily left. Just how many Sociologists, Psychologists, Political Scientists, and Humanities Doctorates are advocating for Feminism exactly? I mean they literally, cannot exceed 25% of all Ph.Ds in 2017. And that's assuming every single one of those fields is dominated 100% by crazy feminists. Which still doesn't account for the heavy skew of "leftists" in Academia.

So are engineers now neglecting the peer-review process? Are we going to see the ISS crash into the NASA building next year? How about biomedical and biochemical fields which are 15% of the Ph.D graduates in 2017? Should I be worried about any drugs I might take in the future? Will my kidneys explode? How about physicists? Will we be seeing feminist rockets turning people into genderless beings?

Your constant barrage of anti-SJW, anti-feminism is nothing but an alt-right circle jerk that relies on attacking the lowest common denominator, and then extrapolating it to the rest of the world. By that same logic, I can safely conclude that every single right-winger is a fascist, white supremacist, closet cuck. Which is wild fiction of course, but it's a lot closer to reality than the suspension of due process in academia and the slow destruction of science. This is coming from the same people who champion that Climate Change isn't real. Unbelievable.

[sumskilz]

Of course I wasn't surprised when I first read about this, it's not even the first time it happened. Here are the details written by the authors about how they went about their experiment - Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship.

I've only watched part of this interview, but what I did watch was amusing (others may find it disconcerting):



Some related reading:

The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies

Critical Whiteness Studies and the “Jewish Problem”

What should concern reasonable people across the political spectrum is that this nonsense is likely to undermine both academia's credibility and funding.

[Basil II the B.S]

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19301/data

Data on doctorates issues by year. Academia leans extremely heavily left. Just how many Sociologists, Psychologists, Political Scientists, and Humanities Doctorates are advocating for Feminism exactly? I mean they literally, cannot exceed 25% of all Ph.Ds in 2017. And that's assuming every single one of those fields is dominated 100% by crazy feminists. Which still doesn't account for the heavy skew of "leftists" in Academia.

So are engineers now neglecting the peer-review process? Are we going to see the ISS crash into the NASA building next year? How about biomedical and biochemical fields which are 15% of the Ph.D graduates in 2017? Should I be worried about any drugs I might take in the future? Will my kidneys explode? How about physicists? Will we be seeing feminist rockets turning people into genderless beings?

Your constant barrage of anti-SJW, anti-feminism is nothing but an alt-right circle jerk that relies on attacking the lowest common denominator, and then extrapolating it to the rest of the world. By that same logic, I can safely conclude that every single right-winger is a fascist, white supremacist, closet cuck. Which is wild fiction of course, but it's a lot closer to reality than the suspension of due process in academia and the slow destruction of science. This is coming from the same people who champion that Climate Change isn't real. Unbelievable.

I love how you made 1 post with 2 strawmen and, to use your own language, a barrage of insults. I'll ignore similar crap for the rest of the thread.

Of course I wasn't surprised when I first read about this, it's not even the first time it happened. Here are the details written by the authors about how they went about their experiment - Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship.

I've only watched part of this interview, but what I did watch was amusing (others may find it disconcerting):



Some related reading:

The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies

Critical Whiteness Studies and the “Jewish Problem”

What should concern reasonable people across the political spectrum is that this nonsense is likely to undermine both academia's credibility and funding.

We can always count on sumskilz to bring sanity to threads.

Joe Rogan is indeed one of those liberals that's also fed up with nonsense and it's always refreshing to see there are good people among the left as well. The podcast is great. Though I honestly think the Anglo-Saxon academic world is done because of this. It's not just the academics, but the administration is even worse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/o...istrators.html

[Love Mountain]

I love how you made 1 post with 2 strawmen and, to use your own language, a barrage of insults. I'll ignore similar crap for the rest of the thread.

Dude, you haven't replied to an argument honestly for the last few days. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over you "not putting up with my crap". You literally said this,

"Have you ever heard liberals bragging how the majority of the academia leans their way? Well, no wonders, this is what they do. A complete destruction of the peer-reviewing process and the scientific method (which btw is also white supremacist according to these studies).

While the majority of this ideological nonsense so far has been limited to humanities, there's a heavy pressure for intersectionality to be adopted in biology, behavioural science and mathematics. The authors have received enormous support by fellow academics, but the majority of them prefers to remain anonymous out of fear of being reprimanded by the diversity and equity officers of the academic administration and have their career ruined.
So, how do we stop liberals from destroying human knowledge? Is it too late for Western universities?"

I didn't even have to bother with data point to dismiss your silly notion that the political leanings of academia has anything to do with "loosening of standards". I could've just said this in the first post. Peer reviews in Humanities is like using drugs to treat psychological disorders. It's not Math. It's not something we can know for sure and nothing is 100% guaranteed due to the nature of the subjects.

If I were to parrot your argumentation, I'd open up a thread tomorrow talking about how Cold Fusion is proof that Physics is nonsense. It's nonsensical and laced heavily with conspiracy innuendo. Now I realize it's too late for you, since you look at the same material Sargon of Akkad does, but hopefully this'll teach other folks not to believe something just because someone keeps repeating it day in and day out.

[Himster]

Well, number one: Stop calling them liberals. Calling them liberal is giving tacit credence to these positions, as at least half of all thinking western people are liberal. Also such a lazy misnomer lends itself to having your ideas easily dismissed as mere paranoid conspiracy drivel: as it seems like you're collating all liberals into sharing the same group-think ideology, when in actuality most of us abhor it.

But yes, It is hilarious that a lightly edited transcription of Mein Kampf was accepted as a paper by a social "sciences" review board. I'm reasonably confident that most people (liberal or conservative) now rightly view the social sciences as an inherently cancerous element in modern western academia. And we can see this cancer spreading to other disciplines. But opening discussions like this, as if you're bringing up a conspiracy theory, is not helping.

[Basil II the B.S]

Dude, you haven't replied to an argument honestly for the last few days. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over you "not putting up with my crap". You literally said this,

"Have you ever heard liberals bragging how the majority of the academia leans their way? Well, no wonders, this is what they do. A complete destruction of the peer-reviewing process and the scientific method (which btw is also white supremacist according to these studies).

While the majority of this ideological nonsense so far has been limited to humanities, there's a heavy pressure for intersectionality to be adopted in biology, behavioural science and mathematics. The authors have received enormous support by fellow academics, but the majority of them prefers to remain anonymous out of fear of being reprimanded by the diversity and equity officers of the academic administration and have their career ruined.
So, how do we stop liberals from destroying human knowledge? Is it too late for Western universities?"

I didn't even have to bother with data point to dismiss your silly notion that the political leanings of academia has anything to do with "loosening of standards". I could've just said this in the first post. Peer reviews in Humanities is like using drugs to treat psychological disorders. It's not Math. It's not something we can know for sure and nothing is 100% guaranteed due to the nature of the subjects.

If I were to parrot your argumentation, I'd open up a thread tomorrow talking about how Cold Fusion is proof that Physics is nonsense. It's nonsensical and laced heavily with conspiracy innuendo. Now I realize it's too late for you, since you look at the same material Sargon of Akkad does, but hopefully this'll teach other folks not to believe something just because someone keeps repeating it day in and day out.

It's funny you keep naming Sargon of Akkad, because I don't think I have ever watched a full video from him. I don't care. I know he got banned from Patreon because of the usual liberal censorship, but that's about it. There are far better people I listen to. Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Jordan Peterson, David Goodhart, Debra Soh, Gad Saad, Nassim Taleb, the 3 hoaxers of the grievance studies, those are regulars that I listen to. Some of my favourite sources include Quillette and Unherd. Want to go after them? Good luck.

That's why your post is garbage. You assume. Just like your fellow liberals assume I take seriously Alex Jones. I think I have watched in my life 1 full video of Alex Jones, and half of it was him trying to sell his crap. Nobody cares. Memes based on him are funny. You guys can't even distinguish meme creators like Paul Joseph Watson from serious commentators like the ones I listed. The first are there to provide entertainment, not knowledge.

Well, number one: Stop calling them liberals. Calling them liberal is giving tacit credence to these positions, as at least half of all thinking western people are liberal. Also such a lazy misnomer lends itself to having your ideas easily dismissed as mere paranoid conspiracy drivel: as it seems like you're collating all liberals into sharing the same group-think ideology, when in actuality most of us abhor it.

But yes, It is hilarious that a lightly edited transcription of Mein Kampf was accepted as a paper by a social "sciences" review board. I'm reasonably confident that most people (liberal or conservative) now rightly view the social sciences as an inherently cancerous element in modern western academia. And we can see this cancer spreading to other disciplines. But opening discussions like this, as if you're bringing up a conspiracy theory, is not helping.

Do you have a better term? Going for ''upper class white cosmopolitan progressives'' takes way too much every time.

Part of the reason I use it is that as someone who actually values traditional liberal values, I absolutely despise how they have been perverted by these people. Today, Trudeau, who fully adheres to this kind of crap, is a Liberal.Democrats have fully embraced it. If they perverted liberal values, then I'll make sure liberalism becomes such a perjorative term that noone wants to be associated with it.

[Love Mountain]

It's funny you keep naming Sargon of Akkad, because I don't think I have ever watched a full video from him. I don't care. I know he got banned from Patreon because of the usual liberal censorship, but that's about it. There are far better people I listen to. Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Jordan Peterson, David Goodhart, Debra Soh, Nassim Taleb, the 3 hoaxers of the grievance studies, those are regulars that I listen to. Some of my favourite sources include Quillette and Unherd. Want to go after them? Good luck.

I'm not going after them. I'm going after th extreme, inflammatory nonsense you keep typing out. I'm genuinely impressed with how dedicated you are.

That's why your post is garbage. You assume. Just like your fellow liberals assume I take seriously Alex Jones. I think I have watched in my life 1 full video of Alex Jones, and half of it was him trying to sell his crap. Nobody cares. Memes based on him are funny. You guys can't even distinguish meme creators like Paul Joseph Watson from serious commentators like the ones I listed. The first are there to provide entertainment, not knowledge.

You might as well. You could literally script them.

Do you have a better term? Going for ''upper class white cosmopolitan progressives'' takes way too much every time.

Part of the reason I use it is that as someone who actually values traditional liberal values, I absolutely despise how they have been perverted by these people. Today, Trudeau, who fully adheres to this kind of crap, is a Liberal.Democrats have fully embraced it. If they perverted liberal values, then I'll make sure liberalism becomes such a perjorative term that noone wants to be associated with it.

Half of the crap you link isn't even "mainstream liberal" anything. Nor is it "upper class white cosmpolitan progressive." Like I said, you find the worst possible thing you can find, and then extrapolate it across an entire political spectrum you disagree with.

[Basil II the B.S]

Half of the crap you link isn't even "mainstream liberal" anything. Nor is it "upper class white cosmpolitan progressive." Like I said, you find the worst possible thing you can find, and then extrapolate it across an entire political spectrum you disagree with.

How many times I have been grouped with quite possibly the worst human being of all times (aka Hitler) on this site?

Now you get a taste of how it feels.

[Himster]

Do you have a better term? Going for ''upper class white cosmopolitan progressives'' takes way too much every time.

Well that just describes me. too specific. I think SJW describes them well enough (even if it is clumsy, vulgar and crass). Liberal is too broad.

[Basil II the B.S]

The problem with using SJW is that many Democrats who are not SJW have adopted their causes and occasionally their language (eg Hillary). Most of the US left leaning media also does that as well, and I don't think most of the authors are SJWs. So for the sake of debating inclusion, it's not inclusive.

I understand your issue though, so to the very least, I can assure you, you are not even remotely included in the target of my rants.

[Gaidin]

The problem with using SJW is that many Democrats who are not SJW have adopted their causes and occasionally their language (eg Hillary). Most of the US left leaning media also does that as well, and I don't think most of the authors are SJWs. So for the sake of debating inclusion, it's not inclusive.

I understand your issue though, so to the very least, I can assure you, you are not even remotely included in the target of my rants.

So you understand the issue regarding one word, but not the other.

That's...interesting.

[Love Mountain]

So you understand the issue regarding one word, but not the other.

That's...interesting.

The attitudes in this thread are much more interesting than the subject matter. It's the end of the academia folks. Start building your bomb shelters for armageddon is upon us. Unless we round up every leftist and put them in separate cage of course.

[Basil II the B.S]

Actually the problem could be easily solved with proper peer-reviewing. Then entire disciplines would be scrapped and thousands of people would end up banished from the academia for anti-scientific research.

Problem solved.

[Heathen Hammer]

This is the result of political marriage between neoliberal elites and modern left where "dog eat dog" capitalism meets neo-marxism, where working class is abandoned in favor of virtue signaling.

[Basil II the B.S]

At this point I'm convinced the elites have come to the conclusion they like monopolies, that's why the switch to the left. You look at the Silicon Valley, those are extremely dominant market positions, then you look at what how they behave politically, the the totalitarian swing is coherent.

Virtue signaling is there to create a moral highground so that the concentration of wealth isn't questioned. Indeed neoliberalism provided the ground for this. It's when Republicans stopped enforcing anti-trust and started arguing in favour of concentration that provides efficiency and ''economies of scale''. This is the outcome.

[Diamat]

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19301/data

Data on doctorates issues by year. Academia leans extremely heavily left. Just how many Sociologists, Psychologists, Political Scientists, and Humanities Doctorates are advocating for Feminism exactly? I mean they literally, cannot exceed 25% of all Ph.Ds in 2017. And that's assuming every single one of those fields is dominated 100% by crazy feminists. Which still doesn't account for the heavy skew of "leftists" in Academia.

So are engineers now neglecting the peer-review process? Are we going to see the ISS crash into the NASA building next year? How about biomedical and biochemical fields which are 15% of the Ph.D graduates in 2017? Should I be worried about any drugs I might take in the future? Will my kidneys explode? How about physicists? Will we be seeing feminist rockets turning people into genderless beings?

Your constant barrage of anti-SJW, anti-feminism is nothing but an alt-right circle jerk that relies on attacking the lowest common denominator, and then extrapolating it to the rest of the world. By that same logic, I can safely conclude that every single right-winger is a fascist, white supremacist, closet cuck. Which is wild fiction of course, but it's a lot closer to reality than the suspension of due process in academia and the slow destruction of science. This is coming from the same people who champion that Climate Change isn't real. Unbelievable.

I think the hard sciences will be much more resistant to leftist political agendas. I noticed this during one of my PhD pedagogical seminars, during which we were taught to select readings on the basis of the author's social and racial background, especially selecting authors of marginalized groups. The one biologist in the room just shook his head while all the historians and dance PhDs just echoed off each other in agreement. I'm really worried for the humanities, based on my own experiences in academia. During another pedagogical seminar, hosted at an academic conference for the purposes of teaching PhD students how to write Teaching Statements, the instructor was telling us about the importance of diversity and inclusion in writing a Teaching Statement. I dared to raise my hand and ask what diversity has to do with teaching. Suffice it to say, during the break, the other students, all female, surrounded me, pointing their finger and yelling at me, some of them hysterically. At one point I told those women that I'm color-blind and won't consider a student's racial background in my teaching. They all flipped, telling me that I shouldn't even be in a PhD program and never become a professor. I learned from this to shut my mouth. My mother, who lived under East German communism, asked me, "why did you speak your opinion? You should never do that." Yeah... It was funny that all the men at this seminar just shut up and didn't try to save a brother.

The humanities are in danger of losing all credibility. If we consider racial and social background/value more important than the actual content of research, the quality of research is bound to decrease, which I have already seen. In recent years, I have read so many poorly written studies that just lack any substantive content, instead being purely driven by theory to give the impression of innovativeness. Empirical research is dying in the humanities. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of great researchers in fields such as history, but departments such as area studies, gender studies, race studies, and now grievance studies contribute to a lower overall quality of research and limit the future hiring prospects of talented researchers in more difficult fields such as history (non-history PhDs can get hired in history departments), because academic hiring today is done around buzzwords such as "gender," instead of caring about the scientific nature of a candidate's research.

[Love Mountain]

Actually the problem could be easily solved with proper peer-reviewing. Then entire disciplines would be scrapped and thousands of people would end up banished from the academia for anti-scientific research.

Problem solved.

"Proper" peer-reviewing is a completely subjective misnomer when it comes from you. You criticize the existing process and claim they should come up with a "proper" one. Proper by who's standard? Proper until Basil approves? What if I don't approve? Is that because I'm a leftist even if I have legitimate criticism? This is pathetic. Especially since we're discussing non-STEM fields.

This is the result of political marriage between neoliberal elites and modern left where "dog eat dog" capitalism meets neo-marxism, where working class is abandoned in favor of virtue signaling.

Congratulations, you've typed out a bunch of buzzwords that do not resemble any reality whatsoever. Not even a parallel one. All of "right-wing" victories only accelerated "Dog eat Dog" capitalism, and the "alt-right" or "non-leftist" crowd actively encourage policies that increase inequality. The "modern left" actively campaigns for worker rights. But apparently Unionism is evil because "Cultural Marxism".

At this point I'm convinced the elites have come to the conclusion they like monopolies, that's why the switch to the left. You look at the Silicon Valley, those are extremely dominant market positions, then you look at what how they behave politically, the the totalitarian swing is coherent.

Ah yes, Exhibit B over here. Silicon Valley has been critical in breaking up monopolies and concentration of wealth in traditionally monopolized markets. Like mail and delivery. Or retail markets, where the only alternative was Wal-Mart. Taxis. Where licensing controlled how many Taxis there could be. Now, the evil Uber and Lyft have given similar services at lowest prices ever. Moreover, who are the most ardent and vocal critics of Silicon Valley and their concentrated wealth? Democrats.

Again, your argument and position are inconsistent with the criticisms you give.

Virtue signaling is there to create a moral highground so that the concentration of wealth isn't questioned. Indeed neoliberalism provided the ground for this. It's when Republicans stopped enforcing anti-trust and started arguing in favour of concentration that provides efficiency and ''economies of scale''. This is the outcome.

Virtue signaling was the original opposition to neoliberals. When neoliberals invaded Iraq, who was the opposition? Virtue signaling anti-war Antifa type leftists. When neoliberals continued to support toxic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who are the most vocal critics? Virtue signaling leftists. Yeah dude. Neoliberals really laid the ing groundwork for their critics. Boo Hoo.

I think the hard sciences will be much more resistant to leftist political agendas. I noticed this during one of my PhD pedagogical seminars, during which we were taught to select readings on the basis of the author's social and racial background, especially selecting authors of marginalized groups. The one biologist in the room just shook his head while all the historians and dance PhDs just echoed off each other in agreement. I'm really worried for the humanities, based on my own experiences in academia. During another pedagogical seminar, hosted at an academic conference for the purposes of teaching PhD students how to write Teaching Statements, the instructor was telling us about the importance of diversity and inclusion in writing a Teaching Statement. I dared to raise my hand and ask what diversity has to do with teaching. Suffice it to say, during the break, the other students, all female, surrounded me, pointing their finger and yelling at me, some of them hysterically. At one point I told those women that I'm color-blind and won't consider a student's racial background in my teaching. They all flipped, telling me that I shouldn't even be in a PhD program and never become a professor. I learned from this to shut my mouth. My mother, who lived under East German communism, asked me, "why did you speak your opinion? You should never do that." Yeah... It was funny that all the men at this seminar just shut up and didn't try to save a brother.

The humanities are in danger of losing all credibility. If we consider racial and social background/value more important than the actual content of research, the quality of research is bound to decrease, which I have already seen. In recent years, I have read so many poorly written studies that just lack any substantive content, instead being purely driven by theory to give the impression of innovativeness. Empirical research is dying in the humanities. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of great researchers in fields such as history, but departments such as area studies, gender studies, race studies, and now grievance studies contribute to a lower overall quality of research and limit the future hiring prospects of talented researchers in more difficult fields such as history (non-history PhDs can get hired in history departments), because academic hiring today is done around buzzwords such as "gender," instead of caring about the scientific nature of a candidate's research.

As an academic you should very well know the empirical value of an anecdote as a method of drawing a generalized conclusion. It is important to underline diversity in schools. Especially universities. It is also important to continually push this boundary when we consider, the legacy of racism in United States. I'm amused that you said you are "color-blind", as if race, as an identifier, is unimportant. Yeah, quite frankly, if I was in a Ph.D. program and someone told me they're "color-blind" and that we shouldn't talk about diversity, I'd gape too.