Saved by the Public: Central European University as Portent
Central European University may have been saved from closure this month by the crowds that went into the streets to defend it . The threat comes from new licensing requirements that could keep CEU from operating legally in Hungary. The president of this private, English-language university, established by George Soros, Michael Ignatieff, deliberately stirred up public concern by posting analyses of the new regulations along with calls for general support. The effort culminated in a widely covered press conference where he stated that a vindictive government was putting the University’s existence at risk. It’s rare to see university heads trying to stir up the public rather than head them off. They’re going to have to get much better at it, for the simple reason that right-wing leaders all over the world have positioned knowledge institutions as enemies of regular people, and universities will need to figure out how to get popular support. This is obviously the case in Hungary or in ...