[3] In 2018 the journal was the target of a scholarly publishing sting called the Grievance Studies affair.

They were published by a team of three authors, Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose to highlight what they saw as poor scholarship and erosion of standards in several academic fields.

The paper titled "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity in Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon" was reviewed, accepted, and received an award.

By the time of the reveal, seven of the group's twenty papers had been accepted for publication, seven were still under review, and six had been rejected.

Included among the articles that were published were arguments that dogs engage in rape culture and that men could reduce their transphobia by anally penetrating themselves with sex toys, as well as part of a chapter of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf rewritten in feminist language.