At least some of academia agrees with you about Java. Our (large UK university) undergrads learn C, Python, Haskell and Java in their first year. We're aiming

At least some of academia agrees with you about Java. Our (large UK university) undergrads learn C, Python, Haskell and Java in their first year. We're aiming for them to get different things from each of these, and also to avoid them settling into a mindset where one language is how they think about programming. Currently I've got final year students doing projects in Rust, C and C# (each being appropriate in the appropriate domain). We didn't teach them Rust or C#, but they're not afraid of learning a new language while doing the project, which is as it should be.