BY ANTHONY DAVID VERNON

What is proper duty? For Chinese philosopher Xunzi, proper duty included “the way of the ritual . . . and return to order.” Double booking breaks rituals and deviates from order. It is problematic for all parties, as we all have what Xunzi refers to as “a sense of duty” or “yi,” with every academic field having its own yi. Betraying its yi, academia has double booked its duties: the “natural” duty to educate openly and the “idol” duty of serving the almighty dollar.

For Xunzi, duty and yi must be singular. We can witness in double booking the betrayal of duty as singular, whether the double booking was done out of forgetfulness, by error, or on purpose. Higher education has tried to serve two yis, at least in their expression as both institutions of open education and as business-savvy ventures. But as on a day of double bookings, one cannot attend both obligations, and one must choose the obligation that is of greater importance.

Universities have over time shifted their yi toward being profitable ventures, even institutions of public higher education. In a conflict of double booking, universities have chosen the dollar and are no longer attending to open education. We need only cite the example of Columbia University, which “has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled.” Even before such political matters, we saw universities focusing more on revenue than on students. As Andrew Gillen notes in the report Trends in Higher Education: State Funding and Tuition Revenue at Public Colleges from 1980 to 2023, “Total revenue has increased by $202 per student per year (a 95 percent confidence interval is $188–$217). Total revenue reached a new high of over $18,000 per student in 2023, almost twice the amount in 1980.” Now, political pressures have only confirmed which obligations higher education administrations and institutional bodies want to meet.

For Xunzi, ritual and therefore yi draw from the past. We cannot delude ourselves that there were glory days from higher education’s past. Yet a ritual does not always have to be honest about the past; it can instead point to some desirable attribute or stance from the past. We can never return to the past, but especially in the face of political pressure professors should affirm a yi of open education. Current politics are focused on stomping out concepts such as “wokeness,” DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), critical race theory, intersectionality, and Palestinian genocide. Whatever one thinks of these notions, education should create a space where ideas are discussed openly with agreement and disagreement. But I guess administrators missed that meeting for some other meeting related to grant money.

Of course, institutions need money to operate—to think otherwise would be sheerly foolish. But an ideal institution could plan monetarily while serving the yi of open education. The meetings on money and open education must be conducted (literally and figuratively) in different time slots; otherwise, one gets sidelined on and neither can fully proceed. If higher education institutions keep caving into money and political pressure, then they are vapid institutions that ultimately stand for nothing. If higher education institutions do not consider money, they cannot go about open education. It is a difficult compromise, but there has been no compromise as of late—instead, in effect, open educational meetings are being flat out canceled. We need look no further than the University of Michigan’s decision to close its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

We can acknowledge general biases among educators while being open to their perspectives. How can students learn myriad perspectives if professors are not safe to express multiple perspectives. The abrupt dismissal in my home state of Kevin Wang, a Chinese professor at The New College of Florida, “under a state law that restricts Florida’s public universities from hiring individuals they deem to be from ‘countries of concern’” is not an isolated case; it occurred alongside the kidnapping of students at Columbia University, Tufts University, University of Minnesota, and other campuses. Universities are sadly cornered, but they should take a financial hit in order to protect students and academics alongside open education and free expression.

The principles matter more than the principal, or at least they should according to a certain yi. Yet not all hope is lost. Rice University speaking out in support of its international students and Harvard rejecting federal funds to keep to its yi are important examples of how institutions should behave.

Anthony David Vernon is adjunct professor of philosophy at St. Thomas University (Miami Gardens) and at Miami-Dade College.