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Academia under attack

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, page 309 (2022)Cite this article

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To the Editor — I work at a university whose recent experience has become iconic in discussions about academic freedom. Central European University (CEU), a Hungarian–American graduate university, was expelled from its Budapest home in 2018, following legislative changes in higher education policy by the conservative government led by prime minister Viktor Orbán. Additionally, one of the academic units in which I work, the Open Learning Initiative, was suspended because of a related set of laws that imposed financial penalties for organizations and actions that involved ‘migration propaganda’1.

The ‘Stop Soros’2 package of laws was designed to put a halt to the influence of the American financier and philanthropist George Soros in Hungarian civil society. Key targets were human rights nongovernmental organizations and universities, specifically those working on issues related to migration and gender. CEU, which was established by George Soros in 1994, was the poster child of these culture wars3, demonized — along with the Open Society Foundations — as the nodal point of Soros’ nefarious plans4 in Hungary.

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References

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  1. Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Vienna, Austria

    Prem Kumar Rajaram

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  1. Prem Kumar Rajaram
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Correspondence to Prem Kumar Rajaram.

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Rajaram, P.K. Academia under attack. Nat Hum Behav 6, 309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01270-x

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