Sector leaders must show ¡°moral courage¡± to combat science denialism and rebuild universities¡¯ social licence to operate, according to the?University of Auckland¡¯s vice-chancellor.

Dawn Freshwater said efforts to build more sustainable and equitable societies were being undermined by a ¡°truth crisis¡± in which ¡°objective facts¡± were being challenged as a shaper of public opinion by misinformation and the power of big technology corporations.

¡°To enact the response to this challenge requires moral courage but it¡¯s fundamental. We have a responsibility as universities to ensure that truth rises,¡± Freshwater told 51³Ô¹Ï¡¯s 51³Ô¹Ï Sustainable Development Congress in Istanbul.

Freshwater acknowledged that the antidote to ¡°bad speech¡± was not simply ¡°more speech from us¡±. ¡°We tried this¡­to date it hasn¡¯t worked. We need to understand that; we¡¯re facing a different crisis to the one that we thought we were,¡± she said.

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It was, she noted, ¡°easier to fool someone than to convince them that they¡¯ve been fooled. Our job is to convince people that they¡¯ve been fooled.¡±

And, she continued, while interpersonal trust ¡°makes us human¡±, it was ¡°institutional trust that makes us citizens¡±, and this was in ¡°steep decline¡±.

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¡°The so-called post-truth era is marked by widespread disinformation and misinformation which is leading to ideological fragmentation in our institutions,¡± Freshwater said. ¡°The public consensus of what the truth is has been eroded and the net effect of all of this ¨C which some would call a considered campaign ¨C serves to plant doubt and distrust and create an army of deniers.¡±

Freshwater announced last week that she would step down as Auckland vice-chancellor in mid-2026, following a tenure that included extended Covid-19 lockdowns and institutional soul-searching?over the place of M¨¡ori cultural knowledge in higher education.

Freshwater was also involved in a protracted legal dispute with high-profile microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles, who alleged that Auckland had failed to shield her from threats and abuse over her coronavirus commentary.

Freshwater acknowledged that universities faced particular challenges but argued that they must overcome them if they are to reclaim their place in society and help further progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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¡°We need to be brave in facing up to the challenges that I¡¯ve outlined here and that¡¯s actually quite difficult for leaders at the moment, as I know only too well myself: brave because we have to deploy moral courage to operate in a polarised and polarising world where higher education leaders themselves have become targets of abuse; brave because moral corrosion means we are ever more transactional in our approach, and massification of higher education is a case in point where we¡¯ve improved access but not outcomes for marginalised groups and where financial imperatives have been conflated with international education,¡± Freshwater said.

¡°These challenges will not go away any time soon but they are fundamental to address if we really want to rehabilitate trust and truth.¡±

Core university activities such as research, open inquiry and peer review ¡°require truth as a default¡±, Freshwater said, but she noted that the global collaboration that underpinned much university activity on sustainability-focused topics was particularly at risk.

¡°As our sector faces extreme challenges and a world buffeted by geopolitics, many of our peers are retrenching globally,¡± she said. ¡°Polarisation is now a political strategy; we are being pushed inward; for many it¡¯s a matter of survival. This sees the SDGs slip into the background for many; others can continue to engage internationally but that¡¯s not all of us. We know the criticality of global collaboration and it must be sustained in the belief that the geopolitical tensions we are witnessing will ultimately give way for peace.¡±

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Technological progress made restoring trust in universities only more important, said Freshwater, who argued that moral courage could be the ¡°antidote¡± in an ¡°age of ¡®swipe, tap, click, like¡¯ distraction¡±.

¡°They¡¯re worth defending,¡± she said of values such as trust and truth, ¡°not only for our institutional autonomy, not just to create better critical thinkers, but as much so that when we reach ¨C and we are reaching that now ¨C that rapid tipping point around machine consciousness with immense civilisational impacts that we as humans are able to influence minds before they are changed by intelligences without minds and with little experiential understanding of moral courage.¡±

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chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com