Reclaiming higher education demands moral courage and autonomy

Since the beginning of the 21^st century, universities have come under mounting pressure as megatrends and trends specific to the higher education sector have taken hold.  

We are now confronting a daunting mass of interrelated issues: financial pressures, institutional autonomy, calls for institutional neutrality, the erosion of social license, competitive rankings, decolonization, indigenization, freedom of expression, academic freedom and polarization seeping into campus communities. Meanwhile, artificial Intelligence is threatening our very fundamentals.  

It is not a question of how we teach, or what we teach but that we teach. 

This was our reality before the November 2024 election in the United States, which marked the beginning of the 2025 assault on one of the world’s most highly respected higher education systems. 

It’s time to resume our decades-long conversation about the moral courage that underpins our institutions — a courage we and our communities have come to take for granted.

At its core, moral courage requires an unwavering commitment to truth, justice and the public good, particularly when these values conflict with institutional interests or political expediency. It manifests in slogans such as “speaking truth to power.” Interesting word, truth. More on that later. Our moral courage is now being tested. The front line is the United States, yet these moral challenges have been and continue to be exported worldwide. 

Adjacent to moral courage is institutional autonomy. Many of us are facing legislative interventions that challenge this defining prerequisite of a university: self-rule and self-determination. 

The erosion of moral courage 

Moral courage speaks to ethics, sensitivities to justice, self-regulation and self-efficacy. Yet this virtue has been in decline. In an age of swipe-tap-click-like distraction, these attributes are not abundant in our society. We might consider moral courage as doing the right thing even when not being watched. Taking the right action is not always comfortable in an age of risk aversion and pressures to conform. It requires courage in the face of potential alienation from peers, colleagues, funders, donors and even governments.  

This is our test.  

To rise to this challenge, as British historian Niall Ferguson tells us, we must also see moral courage as a motivating force that assists our students, colleagues, communities and future leaders in overcoming the many fearful barriers in society, enabling them to be active citizens. 

   It takes moral courage to pursue research to address global issues and change lives. We do this effortlessly. Yet we must also commit to stepping up in society to address those who discard values and ethics in the service of moral courage. One acute example is pursuing values and ethics in developing artificial intelligence. AI without humanity’s value system is dystopian. 

This is our pivot point, where moral courage must guide everything we do. I acknowledge my colleagues who are bravely doing just that. 

Autonomy is under threat 

University autonomy is closely associated with moral courage. This independence separates institutions from governments and allows them to decide how they are run, what they teach, what they research and how they execute their role in society. 

As polarization divides our institutions, we must focus on protecting autonomy and take care that in pursuing individual or group agendas, we do not threaten this defining dimension of what we are. University autonomy fosters academic freedom, fuels innovation and protects institutions from undue influence. But in 2025, this principle faces unprecedented challenges as governments, markets, ideologies and some of our colleagues encroach on the independence of institutional and scholarly space.  

Challenges to autonomy come in many forms. They are fueled by an erosion of public support and trust in our institutions and what we do. Ironically, at the same time, we are witnessing increasing student numbers and governments and industry refocusing on the economic value of university research and innovation.  

Today, we see challenges to autonomy in the US administration’s demands on universities to amend policies. Equally alarming are maneuvers to restrict international education. In England, the Office for Students regulates higher education with the power to intervene in university affairs. 

Most universities, partially funded by their populations through government funding, are facing financial difficulties, due in part to reduced or frozen funding that fails to recognize the inflationary impacts on their costs. The funding model in many countries is no longer fit for purpose, placing higher education institutions in conflict with governments. Financial survival is increasingly pitted against autonomy. 

Institutional neutrality 

As polarization has divided university academics and students, there have been increasingly louder calls for institutional neutrality. This is controversial. Supporters argue that it strengthens academic freedom, while others claim that it undermines it. Institutional neutrality can be seen as a handy principle to avoid political controversy or ethical responsibility. Others will argue that neutrality itself is a political position. 

There is a timely challenge to this very issue. Could internal policies or legislated institutional neutrality deny university leaders their moral duty to defend their institutions? Leaders must have the moral courage to critique the systems we inhabit. By nature, university leaders are measured; they deploy their voices carefully; yet to gag them and their institutions with vague and broad language redefines them and society’s understanding of higher education.

While universities support and promote the expression of diverse viewpoints, they also have a duty to denounce injustice and uphold human dignity.

Trust, social license and rankings 

Social license is effectively an informal contract with our communities. It is a mandate to operate with public trust. Over time, this has been eroded as universities have grown in scale and influence. Critics have watched tuition fees increase, and employers have complained that higher education fails to produce “work-ready” graduates. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the public turned to university experts for understanding and advice. Prolonged lockdowns and evolving knowledge ultimately accelerated distrust in higher education institutions. 

It is confronting to witness this while, at the same time, higher education is accessible to more diverse people and has shown to be a powerful engine to improve lives.  

In parallel to this phenomenon of eroding social license and successful, growing institutions is the mainstreaming and global profiling of competitive university rankings. While these are not a primary focus for most institutions, they have become important in domestic and international efforts to attract students and research income. 

University rankings and the agencies that develop them have become powerful forces in higher education. However, rather than treating rankings as mere trophies, we need to focus on creating rankings that highlight local impact. This would show communities the direct social and economic contributions their universities bring and where there is room to grow and improve. Encouragingly, this new approach to assessing universities is already underway. 

Conclusion  

All committed to higher education, its benefits for communities, and its role in civil society bear a moral responsibility to defend autonomy. We are the current guardians of a system founded in 1088 that has shaped our identity, achievements and contributions over centuries. Our forebears challenged orthodoxy and explored the unknown to forge new frontiers, expand horizons and save lives. 

In 2025, autonomous institutions are responding to complex challenges, including geopolitics, geoeconomics, climate change, AI, misinformation, disinformation and public health with intellectual rigor. They undertake this work in collaboration with external peers while being mindful of the influence exerted. Institutions must choose their path. While individual institutions have robust internal debates about this, we must navigate external pressures with the same rigor we apply to our research.  

The pursuit of truth remains in the foreground for institutions such as ours, and to be taken seriously, trust — no matter how mercurial it may appear — needs to be measured in equal parts to truth.