George Soros University Gets Reprieve From Hungary — For Now
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Hungary has extended a deadline for a U.S.-accredited Budapest university founded by George Soros, philanthropist financier and prominent critic of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, to comply with a new education law or face closure.
As Hungary prepares for parliamentary elections in early 2018, the nationalist, right-wing Orban, who leads the ruling Fidesz party, has launched a “national consultation campaign” on Soros and what he has dubbed the “Soros plan”.
The higher education bill applies to all international universities, not just the Soros-founded Central European University, but critics say it was clearly targeted at the Hungarian liberal, whom Orban accuses of planning to bring millions of migrants into Europe.
Parliament approved to amend the higher education law, which sparked big protests when it was passed in April, to extend the deadline for foreign universities to meet conditions for operating in Hungary until end-2018 from end-2017.
Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi said in the bill that the legislation wanted to create a level playing field for all institutions of higher education.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
