Central to the American tradition of expanding protections for controversial speech is a robust distrust of potential censors to make reasonable judgments about what speech should be suppressed. But the arguments for a more restrictive approach to speech often implicitly or explicitly evince much greater trust in the likely decision-makers who will be entrusted with the authority to suppress speech. Whether restricting Communist speech, antiwar speech, “hate speech,” or “disinformation,” the case for empowering some authority figure—such as campus administrators, technology company employees, or government officials—builds on an assumption that those authority figures will be motivated by good intentions and be endowed with good judgment to make reasonable distinctions between the speech that should be tolerated and the speech that should not. Such confidence would often seem to be misplaced.

Globalization has come to define the modern world. Originally venerated as a force that would bring humanity to the peak of its flourishing through economic integration and positive cross-cultural exchange, globalization has deepened economic inequities, driven the dangerous degradation of the environment, and destabilized regions over fights for resources. Migration, a natural response to this precarity, has swelled, making the children of immigrants a growing, key demographic in schools across many high- and middle-income countries. The resilience, flexible thinking, and multilingualism of immigrant-origin students make them valuable community members in our globalized world. However, their schools are not always equipped to meet their psychosocial needs. While the current primary focus on language acquisition is an important foundation for supporting these students, an equitable whole-child approach is necessary to address their unique challenges and create an environment in which they can flourish.

This essay examines how universities in non-Western, non-English-speaking countries respond to global competition in higher education, where English has become dominant due to “linguistic imperialism.” I pose critical questions about how these institutions can not only endure but thrive amid global competition, and whether intensified global competition has improved the quality of education. Focusing on Japan, I explore both successful and challenging aspects of globalization in its institutions of higher education. While Japan achieved success in adapting during the late nineteenth century, the emphasis on learning foreign languages, including English, diminished after World War II. The Japanese case illustrates the complex trade-offs between ensuring educational equity and global competitiveness, and highlights the evolving dynamics and challenges faced by universities as well as policymakers in non-English-speaking countries in the global higher-education landscape.