The Decline of Academia

In this American Thinker article, Lars Møller reveals how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are destroying Western academia by replacing meritocracy with racial quotas, social activism, and lowered standards, accelerating the decline of civilization itself.

• Western universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale historically thrived on uncompromising meritocracy—objective metrics such as exams, SAT scores, publications, and citations that rewarded excellence regardless of background, driving innovation and social mobility.
• DEI acts as an ideological pathogen, substituting racial preferences and therapeutic empathy for rigorous judgment, discriminating against qualified Asian and White applicants in favor of demographic parity.
• This erosion leads to declining research quality, curricula dominated by grievance studies, grade inflation, and graduates unprepared for real-world fields like medicine, engineering, and governance, where competence literally saves lives.
• The “mismatch” thesis demonstrates how affirmative action places students in environments beyond their capabilities, breeding resentment rather than achievement, while DEI bureaucracies enforce loyalty oaths akin to Soviet-style commissariats.
• Comparisons to other regions show diluted meritocracies hampered by patronage and politics fail to match the West’s post-Enlightenment dynamism, warning that equity-driven dilutions will converge downward toward mediocrity and inefficiency.
• Ultimately, abandoning color-blind standards and truth-seeking for enforced equity corrupts Judeo-Christian compassion into self-flagellation, introduces soft totalitarianism through speech codes and viewpoint discrimination, and invites Spenglerian civilizational senescence.
• Restoring academic excellence requires dismantling DEI structures, reaffirming individual justice based on talent and effort, and recommitting to the pursuit of truth as the foundation of ordered liberty and progress.

Read the full story:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/06/the-decline-of-academia/