Central European University has long been considered among the world’s finest graduate schools, attracting students from across the globe, and it is widely seen as the best in Hungary.
But the university, which was founded by Hungarian American financier George Soros, has also been the target for nearly two years of a right-wing government that has systematically consolidated control and marginalized dissent.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been particularly ruthless in attacking anything associated with Soros, whose open and liberal philosophy is the antithesis of the illiberal, nationalist and nativist view celebrated by Orban.
The university said Monday it was left with no choice but to move its primary campus to Vienna next year after Orban’s government refused to acknowledge an agreement that would enable the school to continue to admit new students in Budapest.
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