Can universities defy the new nationalism? | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Sunday
June 08, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
SUNDAY, JUNE 08, 2025
Can universities defy the new nationalism?

Thoughts

Emily J Levine; Project Syndicate
16 November, 2021, 02:45 pm
Last modified: 16 November, 2021, 03:29 pm

Related News

  • BSB Global Network accused of Tk18cr embezzlement in overseas education scam
  • Agri ministry recommends separate higher edu inst for agri diploma students
  • Are we doing justice to our higher education?
  • 5 underrated study destinations for Bangladeshi students
  • Free consultancy programmes to help you get into top US universities

Can universities defy the new nationalism?

In the long history of scientific discovery, the recent trend toward nativism – exemplified by the US ban on Chinese scholars in many fields – is an aberration. Those who want to participate in the scientific enterprise must be willing to open their borders to partners from elsewhere, including potential rivals

Emily J Levine; Project Syndicate
16 November, 2021, 02:45 pm
Last modified: 16 November, 2021, 03:29 pm
Emily J Levine. Illustration: TBS
Emily J Levine. Illustration: TBS

The cosmopolitan values of higher education are in retreat before a rising wave of provincialism. International student enrollment at universities in the United States continues to decline, while branch campuses of American universities abroad are being reorganized or shut down. This trend has ominous implications – and not only for education and research.

Universities stand at the intersection of national interest and universal goals. While they play a role in nation-building, they also promote the pursuit of truth, which has historically benefited from the free exchange of ideas and the free movement of scholars and students across borders. In an era of dwindling global institutions, the university is the latest to experience a decline in power and influence. The open flow of ideas is now at risk. Can that be changed?

Universities rose to prominence in the nineteenth century by making themselves useful to nation-states, training members of the civil service, and improving technology through basic research. Later, they became a forum for global collaboration, finding ways to balance their obligations to their home countries and their responsibilities to the international community. But fears about the rise of China and suspicion of espionage have tipped the scale toward national priorities in recent years.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

In 2020, President Donald Trump issued an order banning Chinese graduate students and researchers in a number of scientific fields. President Joe Biden's administration has maintained the ban. Earlier this year, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas proposed a prohibition on funding from Chinese entities to US universities and the end of the ten-year multiple-entry visa program for Chinese citizens.

Graduates leave the Sheldonian Theatre after a graduation ceremony at Oxford University, in Oxford, Britain. Photo: Reuters
Graduates leave the Sheldonian Theatre after a graduation ceremony at Oxford University, in Oxford, Britain. Photo: Reuters

American nationalists like Cotton rarely acknowledge that the Chinese are following a path laid by US students. In the nineteenth century, nearly 10,000 Americans travelled to study at universities in Germany. When they returned, they established institutions modelled on the ones they found abroad. The Americans' adaptations of the German universities were so effective that by 1900, the flow of traffic reversed. Germans attended the World's Fairs in Chicago and St. Louis to learn about American developments in higher education, such as co-education and applied mathematics. Research and innovation in the natural sciences and the humanities expanded as a result of this "competitive emulation."

Despite some German concerns that American students might steal trade secrets, intellectual curiosity overcame protectionism. Scientists and scholars from the two countries became partners as well as competitors. Professors travelled back and forth between New York and Berlin on exchanges, sharing and advancing ideas. One Prussian education leader marvelled that this mutual learning "represents progress ... in the direction of the intellectual unity of the human race...."

The two world wars undermined academic cooperation. The university was pulled toward the state and faculty promoted themselves as experts who could advance national goals. American professors turned on their German colleagues; those who refused were fired.

After World War II, it took numerous efforts to revive the dormant values of transatlantic scientific exchange and transparency. Even the international programs of the Cold War era, like the Ford Foundation-funded Free University of Berlin, the Fulbright Program, and the German Academic Exchange Service, were more expressions of "soft power" than true scientific partnerships.

In recent years, universities have brought back nineteenth-century-style cooperation to tackle twenty-first-century problems. A collaboration between the University of California and German institutions, funded by the non-profit Resources for the Future, is driving innovation on climate policy. Scholars from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Berlin, and the Institute for European Studies in Brussels, are sharing research on decarbonization and the electrification of transportation. Their work is leading to green innovation on both sides of the Atlantic.

Photo: Collected
Photo: Collected

But US universities today are pulled in divergent directions. Although the majority of their research funding comes from the federal government, they generally support the global sharing of ideas, even with US competitors. That's how knowledge advances. Rather than blocking potential research partners from acquiring visas, governments should be encouraging international scientific collaboration through financial support and exchange programs. The Biden administration should take this opportunity to promote the value of science as a public good.

In the long history of scientific discovery, the recent trend toward nativism is an aberration. Scientific advances and technological innovation require a free exchange. Those who want to participate in the scientific enterprise must be willing to open their borders to partners from elsewhere, including potential rivals.

Many have asked whether China can become a scientific superpower despite its regressive politics and limited freedoms. But we should also be asking a different question: Can US universities remain the best in the world despite closing themselves off from China and the rest of the global community?

To remain vital and relevant – and support both national and global progress – universities must remain open to the world. Americans should know this as well as anyone.


Emily J Levine, Associate Professor of Education and History at Stanford University, is the author, most recently, of Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University (University of Chicago Press, 2021).

universities / nationalism / Higher education / Provincialism

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Rawhide collected from various parts of the city. Photo taken on 7 June in Old Dhaka. Rajib Dhar/ TBS
    Rawhide prices see slight increase, but below fair value
  • According to tannery officials, most of the hides delivered so far came from madrasas and orphanages in Dhaka. Photo: Noman Mahmud/TBS
    Rawhide collection in full swing at Savar tanneries; 6 lakh hides expected in 2 days
  • Elon Musk listens to US President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, February 11, 2025. File Photo: REUTERS
    Trump asks aides whether they believe Musk's behaviour could be linked to alleged drug use, source says

MOST VIEWED

  • Long lines of vehicles were seen at the Mawa toll plaza, although movement remained smooth on 5 June 2025. Photos: TBS
    Padma Bridge sets new records for daily toll collection, vehicle crossings
  • The government vehicle into which a sacrificial cow was transported by a UNO. Photo: TBS
    Photo of Natore UNO putting cattle in govt vehicle takes social media by storm
  • Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman and his wife exchange Eid greetings with Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus at the State Guest House Jamuna in Dhaka today (7 June). Photo: CA Press Wing
    Army chief exchanges Eid greetings with CA Yunus
  • Fire service personnel carry out rescue operations after Dhaka-bound Parjatak Express train hit a CNG auto-rickshaw last night (5 June). Several other vehicles also got trapped under the train. Photo: Mohammad Minhaj Uddin
    3 killed, several injured after Dhaka-bound Parjatak Express train hits CNG auto-rickshaw on Kalurghat bridge
  • CA’s televised address to the nation on the eve of the Eid-ul-Adha on 6 June. Photo: Focus Bangla
    National election to be held any day in first half of April 2026: CA
  • Representational image: WHO
    Health ministry urges public to wear masks amid rising Covid-19 infections

Related News

  • BSB Global Network accused of Tk18cr embezzlement in overseas education scam
  • Agri ministry recommends separate higher edu inst for agri diploma students
  • Are we doing justice to our higher education?
  • 5 underrated study destinations for Bangladeshi students
  • Free consultancy programmes to help you get into top US universities

Features

Photo collage shows political posters in Bagerhat. Photos: Jannatul Naym Pieal

From Sheikh Dynasty to sibling rivalry: Bagerhat signals a turning tide in local politics

11h | Bangladesh
Illustration: TBS

Unbearable weight of the white coat: The mental health crisis in our medical colleges

3d | Panorama
(From left) Sadia Haque, Sylvana Quader Sinha and Tasfia Tasbin. Sketch: TBS

Meet the women driving Bangladesh’s startup revolution

3d | Panorama
Illustration: TBS

The GOAT of all goats!

5d | Magazine

More Videos from TBS

Power shift in Chinese politics, Is Li Qiang emerging in Xi Jinping's shadow?

Power shift in Chinese politics, Is Li Qiang emerging in Xi Jinping's shadow?

6h | TBS World
Eid joy fills the capital, with residents busy performing animal sacrifices

Eid joy fills the capital, with residents busy performing animal sacrifices

12h | TBS Today
Chief Advisor offers Eid prayers at National Eidgah

Chief Advisor offers Eid prayers at National Eidgah

13h | TBS Today
Hamas warns of tougher resistance if fighting doesn't stop

Hamas warns of tougher resistance if fighting doesn't stop

13h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net