Trump’s crusade against Columbia is ripped straight from Hungary’s anti-Soros playbook
Viktor Orbán went after a university founded by George Soros in ways that now look awfully familiar
Protesters in Budapest, Hungary demonstrate in favor of the Central European University under the call “I stand with CEU” on Oct. 26, 2018. Photo by Ferenc Isza/AFP via Getty Images
Contributing Columnist Emily Tamkin March 17, 2025
A renowned university in its country’s biggest city is brought to its knees by a government intent on attacking perceived outsiders and cultural elites.
That could describe Columbia University today under attacks by President Donald Trump’s administration. Or it could describe the George Soros-founded Central European University several years ago, under Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
What the fate of CEU shows us: Attempts to appease an authoritarian-minded government intent on destroying an institution almost never work. Trump has expressed open admiration for Orbán, and given how intently Orbán set himself against CEU, Columbia has good reason to fear that the Trump administration’s crusade against it — purportedly over mismanagement of campus antisemitism — may yet get much worse.
For more than two decades, CEU, which Soros founded in the 1990s, brought students from all over the world to Hungary to study. There, in Budapest, they could get a degree in, among other things, nationalism studies.
Until Hungary decided that, no, they couldn’t.
That happened around the time that Soros, a Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire philanthropist and now-regular target of antisemitic conspiracy theories, became a favorite political punching bag for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who accused him of trying to corrode the Hungarian nation by advancing a “globalist” agenda through immigration and NGOs.
The idea that a lone Jewish man is trying to undermine Hungary’s democracy and sovereignty is one many, myself included, have called antisemitic; it has nevertheless been an enduring trope for Orbán, and one that has translated into concrete policy change. The university is one example: In 2017, Hungary passed a law that said foreign universities could only exist if they had bilateral agreements with, and a full campus in, their “home countries” — a move clearly aimed at Soros and CEU, even though the Hungarian government insisted otherwise.
But the public knew better: The law was widely referred to as “Lex CEU.”
CEU, which as an American-accredited institution counted as a foreign university, tried to comply with what they were told were the legal reasons for the crackdown. They signed a memorandum of understanding with Bard College to provide educational activities in New York. Surely this, they said at the time, put them in compliance with the law. They pointed to the clause in Hungarian basic law protecting academic freedom.
But CEU ended up pushed out anyway — because the Hungarian government’s issue with the school was never really legal, but rather ideological. Though there is still a research presence in Budapest, the campus as such has moved to Vienna.
Why would the Hungarian government object so strenuously to an institution that elevated Hungary’s profile, helped the local economy and helped attract experts to the country? Because CEU was a symbol not only of intellectualism — which Orbán, like Trump, despises — but also of multiculturalism, founded by a person whose primary philanthropic project is called the Open Society Foundations, standing there in the capital.
What better symbol for an authoritarian to stamp on, just to show he could? To prove that his project of proudly illiberal nationalism would prevail?
Columbia has so far, like CEU, aimed at a strategy of appeasement.
Its former president, Minouche Shafik, went before Congress last spring — long before Trump even took office — and said that the university had not done enough to fight antisemitism, but offered examples of specific actions it had taken. After Shafik’s appearance, Columbia set up a new Office of Institutional Equity and assembled a taskforce on antisemitism that released not one but two reports. When protests escalated last spring, the university administration called the police to campus; more than 100 people were arrested.
The Trump administration still cut $400 million in funding, $260 million of which were grants from the National Institutes of Health. What does withholding money from scientific and medical research have to do with fighting antisemitism?
Last week, Columbia expelled students involved in last year’s takeover of Hamilton Hall. I can’t see the future, but I suspect that action won’t satisfy Trump’s administration either. In fact, I suspect Columbia could meet every one of the administration’s new demands to restore its federal funding — which apparently include letting the federal government dictate the university’s disciplinary procedure; banning masks; adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes anti-Zionism; and placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African studies department, the chair of which is a professor of Hebrew, in academic receivership — and it would still be in the crosshairs.
Columbia can’t possibly meet the Trump administration’s demands for fighting antisemitism because the demands are not about fighting antisemitism. The project is not a legal one. It’s an ideological one.
Antisemitism is a pretext. That there are some very vocal American Jews who believe Trump is sincere in his efforts is perhaps a benefit to him, but does not change that he is cynically, transparently using antisemitism for other political purposes. The president is going to war on higher education and freedom of speech and assembly because the freedom to criticize the government is an impediment to his political project, and because multicultural, diverse institutions that encourage thinking about, say, nationalism, differently than he does are, too. His first battlefield is Columbia.
CEU is not the only precedent for what’s happening with Columbia; there are others to be found, including in American history. Those focused on the use of raw power against student protesters could focus on the shooting of anti-war student protesters at Kent State in 1970, while those struck by the politics of guilt by suspected association could look to the Red Scare. I am not saying that Trump’s behavior is somehow foreign or imported.
I am saying, however, that considering the history of Orbán’s campaign against CEU can provide clarity for this moment, and help us understand how alarming Trump’s endgame with Columbia might be.
Orbán went after CEU as a stepping stone. He has cracked down on NGOs and even those who would help asylum seekers. As I write this, he’s continuing to threaten the media. His ruling party is trying to ban the Pride march this year.
Charges of foreign influence were never going to be limited to one institution. There is every reason to believe Trump’s goals might similarly, alarmingly extend beyond Columbia.
And why start with Columbia? I think it’s for the same reason that Orbán went after CEU. When I was a Columbia student, our dean used to proudly tell us that we were the greatest college in the greatest university in the greatest city in the world. Maybe even the most cynical among us sometimes let ourselves believe him, standing there in New York City amid scholars from all around the world, challenging ourselves with new ideas. But ideas are a threat to those who seek absolute power. What better symbol to take down to show they can?
