Academia’s Self‑Delegitimization Invites Retaliation

Decades of visible politicization inside universities—standardizing ideological commitments in hiring, curriculum, administrative practice, and public rhetoric—can politically delegitimize academe in the eyes of large voter blocs. That delegitimization lowers political costs for hostile actors to withdraw funding, reassign grants, or restructure governance, turning cultural capture into a practical vulnerability. — If true, the argument reframes higher‑education controversies as institutional‑risk management rather than cultural squabbles, with immediate consequences for funding, research autonomy, and democratic legitimacy.