CEU moves US degrees to Vienna
December 4th, 2018A leftist commentator accuses the government of trying to annihilate those intellectuals whose opinions differ from its own. A pro-government columnist, on the other hand believes that the kind of open society the Central University advocates has no place in Hungary.
In a press release on Monday, the CEU announced that it will move its US degree courses from Budapest to Vienna as the government has not signed a draft agreement with New York State that would allow the CEU to continue to offer US accredited degrees in Budapest. The law requiring foreign universities to run courses in their own country before doing so in Hungary was passed in April 2017. The CEU runs two non-degree courses in New York State which has accredited those courses and was ready to sign an agreement with the Hungarian Government as required by the new law. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó) has argued on behalf of the government that the two CEU courses at Bard College do not amount to a true university. CEU gave the government until December 1st to sign the draft agreement, or it would move the US-accredited courses to Vienna.
On Mérce Kata Ámon, a pro-homeless activist and a doctoral political science student at CEU reads the government’s behaviour as proof that the governing forces want to educate a new generation of intellectuals who either support the government or confine their quest to apolitical and technical matters. She also deplores those opponents of the government who describe the governing forces as barbarians. She thinks the opposition has still not realized what makes their opponents hate them and their ideas. That should be studied and understood before they can find a solution, Ámon writes.
On Pesti Srácok, a columnist who writes under the pen-name Paranoid Android describes the CEU as a factory that produces so-called ‘progressives’ who deny what unites Hungarians and who propagate an interpretation of human genders which would doom mankind to extinction. He concludes that there is no room in Hungary for the CEU and the ideology it stands for, under the name ‘open society’.