The diversity, equity and inclusion movement (DEI) has reached its tipping point. Like so many academic fads, it’s on its way to the dustbin of history. Of course, there is nothing wrong with colleges and universities exploring and even embracing innovative ideas. Intellectual incubation is an inextricable element of higher learning. Academia often sets the course for public policy and absolutely should evaluate new ideas with rigor and robust intellectual debate.

Sadly, that has not happened with DEI, and that’s why it is doomed. Instead of openly debating its merits versus its need for critique, the proponents of DEI shunned, silenced and de-platformed anyone who questioned it. Ironically, those promoting a movement of inclusion proved intolerant of those who did not embrace DEI’s narrow-minded dictates.

Now the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency responsible for the extremely complex mission of keeping airplanes flying safely, in the name of DEI quietly changed its hiring practices to include those with incapacitating mental and physical disabilities. So, DEI has wormed its way from the ivory tower into government and corporate policies, even to the point of jeopardizing passengers.

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Diversity for the sake of diversity puts DEI’s agenda at odds with the idea of achievement through merit. We pay taxes expecting those dollars will provide clean and safe streets, secure borders and a functioning military. When we pay dearly to earn a college degree, we anticipate gaining a body of solid knowledge and skills, not a circular jumble of justifications to overturn what has worked so well for so long.

The compounding dysfunction of DEI has led to too much of academia abandoning objective truth in favor of opinion. When it rejected thousands of years of time-tested education standards in favor of self-indulgent diversity, DEI set itself up to fall victim to intellectually empty notions. Classic education includes a history of similarly failed academic fads. Such anachronistic concepts as eugenics, endomorphic psychology, astrology and phrenology have come and gone, though often only after disastrous results.

While DEI supporters rally under the banner of so-called social justice, actual society is best served by an academic corps which hews to knowledge and truth. A classic education already provides an inclusive, multi-cultural, trans-generational summary of ideas, embracing those that worked, and tossing aside those that did not. The simple truth is we are not in the grips of a debate between DEI and merit. It is that diversity for the sake of diversity, and its tag-alongs of equity and inclusion, hold no merit.

I believe in Imago Deo — that we are created in God’s image by His design. There is no supreme race. There is one human race, and we must commit ourselves to equal treatment, opportunity, love and respect for all races. It is time to refocus our colleges and universities to mastering objective truth, and restore a solid education designed to reveal each student’s God-given talents. Surely, we can put an end to the failed fad of DEI before its institutionalized inadequacies come crashing to the ground.

Merit marches forward when we realize it is up to us, individually and collectively, to rise to meet the challenges of an objective universe, a universe not compromising on eternal truth. Though the arc of man’s history may bend toward justice, universe does not accommodate the vanity of those who believe they can attain whatever they want simply by insisting they deserve it.

Eric Hogue is the current president of Colorado Christian University, where he previously served as vice president of University Advancement. Hogue has a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from William Jessup University. Hogue is also a former political candidate, practicing theologian and pastor, and a long-tenured radio, television and media professional.