my argument against it is that the total reliance on passive voice makes research FAR less accessible to people for whom english is a second languange and neurodivergent people. older academics tell me i'm being anti-intellectual.

That's fair and completely understandable. One of the major reasons for anti-intellectualism are experts talking down on average people. A lot of experts and academics are typically affluent who hardly have to live with salt-of-the-earth, everyday workers and working class. It's a well-known problem who in academia who scoff at student and laypeople. I am not an academic by profession, although I try to know the audience and talk to their level. But I admit that maybe I have come across as smug before without realising it.

younger academics tell me they don't know what passive voice is and don't believe it exists.

I guess the person just have to read academic literatures in their field to get the grasp on how to speak passively. It took awhile for me to master it.

That's why you usually have a paper and then a popular media article written based on it that's what people actually see and read.