LIKE MANY professors, I teach courses ranging from introductory to advanced. I grade (or supervise assistants who grade) papers and examinations. How is this grading different from most other grading? Like justice, it is blind. My students put their names only on pages that the grader looks at after determining the grades.

Blind grading can be a boon for students who have reason to fear bias. The fashionable forms of this fear involve race and gender. Decades of blind grading have shown me that race and gender bear no relation to the quality of my students’ work. But this scarcely makes me free of bias. What teacher lacks bias based on a student’s past performance? When a student has already turned in two mediocre papers, it is hardly unreasonable to expect a similar third one. Yet the student is entitled to have his third paper considered independently of his prior bad acts. Teachers can try to compensate for such bias but may compensate too little or too much.

Many professional journals evaluate submissions blindly, but most of my students tell me I am their only teacher who grades this way. Why don’t all teachers do it? Why don’t students and parents demand it? Here are some answers I have heard.

“Blind grading does not eliminate all bias.” Who claimed it did? Whenever I get a paper with an opening sentence like “Humankind has long pondered the question: What is real?” I am aware that blind grading cannot bypass my “Eek!” reaction. Such writing should affect grades in English composition but not in philosophy courses, where I aim to grade only on clarity and philosophical merit. Blind grading also does not eliminate ideological bias or bias in cases where a student’s writing is recognizable. Blind grading does not eliminate all bias any more than flu shots prevent all influenza. Should doctors stop giving flu shots?

“Blind grading is unnecessary for multiple-choice tests and impossible for class participation.” Again, limitations hardly make a practice useless.

“Blind grading of written work may lead students to avoid class participation or censor their writing if they fear overlap.” I urge my students to express their ideas both in class and in writing. If this makes what they write recognizable, so be it. The risk is small, since, as I assure them, when I think I can tell whose written work I am grading, I usually turn out to be wrong.

“Blind grading necessitates that students avoid discussing their papers with the teacher in advance.” There are various ways around this problem. If I have an assistant who grades the papers, students may discuss them in advance with me. If I grade the papers myself, students may still discuss them in advance with me — by e-mail using addresses that mask their identities. Teachers whose students lack access to e-mail can designate a place for students to drop off anonymous written questions about papers in progress and pick up written replies.

“Blind grading is so impersonal.” That helps make it fair.

“Irrelevant considerations never influence me; so I don’t need to use blind grading.” I hope teachers with this flattering self-assessment will try blind grading and see whether it makes a difference.

“I’ve worked hard all along in this course, and I think whoever grades my written work should take my past performance into account.” This sort of objection illustrates how bias has beneficiaries as well as victims. Some students may want the benefit of a halo effect, but that does not mean they should get it. Halos are for angels.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a monthly contributor, is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.