Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education November 2017. Vol 16 (3): 1–14. doi:10.22176/act16.3.1 © Deborah Bradley 2017. The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author. The ACT Journal and the Mayday Group are not liable for any legal actions that may arise involving the article's content, including, but not limited to, copyright infringement. Interrogating the Grammars of Institutions and Injustice Deborah Bradley, Guest Editor This editorial introduction to ACT 16 (3) explores institutions as sites of paradox whose mission statements (or constitutions in the case of government) suggest concerns for diversity and inclusion but whose “grammars” (Bonilla-Silva 2011) frame thought and action in ways that may prevent the very work towards equity that the statements promote. The grammars of institutional injustice serve to frame the way we (as actors within institutional settings) view social phenomena, as well as the way we experience these phenomena, thus influencing the way we talk about, frame, and strive to resolve matters of injustice. Keywords: institutional injustice, social justice, racial grammar, systemic racism You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. (Marilynne Robinson, Gilead) t was one of the most difficult periods of decision making I have experienced in my life—wrestling with a decision about whether to stay at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or to return to Toronto, where other different-but- related opportunities had presented themselves like stars twinkling in a sky that I could touch and feel. Leaving meant walking away from a job for which I had spent years preparing, for which I felt qualified, and in which I felt a growing sense of accomplishment; returning to Toronto meant returning home—to my life partner, my adult son, to the friends I have known for so long, to my adopted country. Something about my life within the institution caused me a discomfort that I had found difficult to articulate or to reconcile with my teaching and re- search goals. It wasn’t necessarily the bureaucratic nature of institutions—I had spent a great many years of my working life in corporations and other bureau- cratic situations prior to entering academe, so I knew what to expect in that I