The Orbán Playbook

The fall of the USSR and the collapse of the Soviet bloc produced a vacuum in higher education for many Central and Eastern European countries. In 1991, educators from the region came together to found a new major research university, the Central European University (CEU). First headquartered in Bratislava and then Prague, it was finally located in Budapest, Hungary, from 1993 on. There it became a leader in higher education, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, and was a major symbol of Westernization and democratization. Its location in Hungary meant that it partnered closely with the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, the Hungarian American billionaire philanthropist.

The university’s connection with Soros, and the fact that it was a symbol of liberal democracy, was enough to make it an enemy of Hungarian prime minister Orbán. Orbán’s party, Fidesz, has governed Hungary since 2010. Since it took power, Fidesz has cracked down on free speech and other basic civil liberties. Their primary targets have been immigrants and queer people, with Hungary enacting some of the most repressive laws concerning human migration and LGBTQ people in the region. The country was at the forefront of the nationalist, anti-immigration push in Europe in the late 2010s, constructing a fence along its border with Serbia.

This January, Hungary passed the most restrictive immigration law in the European Union, limiting the rights of non-EU citizens to work in the country and forcing them to leave within a week if they lose their jobs. Recent Hungarian laws have also limited the ability of LGBTQ organizations to operate publicly and have banned Pride celebrations nationwide. The EU judged many of these laws to be so harsh that the union responded with sanctions, fines, or the withholding of funds.

When Orbán began attacking the CEU, it was with the excuse that his goal was to go after all universities that were chartered in foreign countries. Orbán’s new law demanded that all universities that operate in Hungary but are chartered elsewhere offer classes in the country where they were chartered, which would require diplomatic intervention on the part of the Hungarian state. It soon became clear that the CEU was the government’s only target, since it was the only Hungarian university that met the criteria — the CEU was chartered and accredited in New York. These would be difficult requirements to meet even with time to plan, but Orbán’s government demanded that they be met almost immediately. The CEU was forced to close in Hungary.

These actions were criticized by the European Union and ultimately ruled to be violations of EU and other international laws requiring that foreign and domestic enterprises be treated equally, but by then it was too late. As a result of Orbán’s actions, the CEU relocated to Vienna, where it operates to this day (though some functions remain in Budapest). And other higher educational institutions in Hungary felt the same pressures even if they weren’t directly targeted by these rules.

Most universities in Hungary are technically funded by the state, even if in practice the state doesn’t exert control over them. Whether this control is overt or latent, it serves to reduce dissent and cow administrators into making choices about faculty hiring, program offerings, and dozens of other matters that are more amenable to the Orbán government. This climate of fear prevents higher education from fulfilling its ideal role — a site of open and honest intellectual engagement with the world.

Orbán’s policies established a clear playbook for how an authoritarian could dismantle a free and democratic education system. First, go after the money: by eliminating funding for higher ed, you can undermine the livelihood and financial security of academics who may criticize the government. Second, violently repress student and faculty protest and revoke teachers’ protections: this undercuts the social movements that might organize on campus to stop the government from attacking higher education and serves as a testing ground for repressive tactics that the government might deploy elsewhere. Finally, attack the institution itself: eliminate its charter or find another legal means to destroy it entirely.

What We Can Expect

When the second Trump administration took power, it announced that it would make good on the plans of Project 2025 to eliminate the Department of Education and massively reduce federal funding for higher learning from STEM to the social sciences and humanities. And we are now seeing assaults on the freedoms and livelihoods of students and faculty, as with the illegal arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who was taken from his home in the middle of the night on the accusation that he was critical of the United States and supportive of terrorism — despite the government admitting he had committed no crime. Other academics, such as Brown University professor and nephrologist Dr Rasha Alawieh, have also been deported despite having valid active visas; reports continue to emerge about international students who are being targeted and arrested by the Department of Homeland Security in connection with speech critical of Israel.

These moves were accompanied by a demand for the US government to exercise an unprecedented degree of control of Columbia’s campus life. Columbia has caved to these demands, which amounts to an end to academic freedom on one of the college campuses most associated with the student activist movements of the 1960s.

The crackdown on free speech in higher ed, especially criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza, didn’t start with the Trump administration, but we can expect such attacks to expand and accelerate. Many universities are complying in advance with Trump’s wishes by not hiring faculty that could see them targeted by the administration, as when New York governor Kathy Hochul successfully demanded that the City College of New York not hire a Palestine studies professor. Other universities, such as the state universities of Michigan and Missouri, are dismantling or defunding diversity programs in acquiescence to White House orders. But universities’ giving up without a fight will only embolden the administration in its attacks on higher ed.

If Orbán’s assault on the CEU is a guide, Trump won’t stop here. He may seek to dismantle some universities entirely, especially those he personally dislikes or that have long been symbols of left-leaning thought or activism. Columbia University, which has seen the federal government cancel $400 million in grants and contracts and not yet had funding restored despite acceding to the administration’s demands, is one example but others spring to mind — including the place where I received my PhD, the University of California, Berkeley. Whether these universities are public or private, all of them require federal funding to function. We can only hope that an emerging opposition movement can stop Trump before he replicates Orbán’s achievements.