Ci uniamo alla protesta che sale dalle comunità accademiche e scientifiche di tutto il mondo contro questa brutale aggressione alla libera ricerca da parte di un potere ferocemente illiberale, violento e accecato dall’onda di follia nazionalista che sta divorando l’anima d’Europa. È assolutamente inaccettabile che l’UE tolleri entro i suoi confini un atto tanto ingiustificabile e contrario al suo spirito.
Hungary’s xenophobic attack on Central European University is a threat to freedom everywhere
di Leon Botstein, Carol Christ and Jonathan Cole
Leon Botstein is president of Bard College; Carol Christ is provost and chancellor-designate at the University of California at Berkeley; Jonathan Cole is a professor and former provost at Columbia University. They are members of the Central European University’s Board of Trustees, of which Botstein is chairman.
Academic freedom is under fire in Hungary. The proudly “illiberal” government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has introduced legislation that attacks the Central European University (CEU) by stripping it of its legal legitimacy and autonomy and its academic freedom.
The legislation, which passed on Tuesday, takes the form of an attachment to an anti-immigration bill. It not only makes it illegal for CEU to operate as an American university in Hungary but also regulates the movement of students and faculty for vaguely worded “national security reasons,” placing the international character of CEU’s student body at risk. There is no evidence that CEU has committed any legal offense or that members of its community are engaged in subversive activities.
The CEU was founded in 1991 and educates roughly 1,500 students from 117 nations in master’s and doctoral programs. It has more than 450 faculty members, drawn from every quarter of the world — many from Hungary. CEU graduates have become leaders in their homelands and in Hungary. CEU has become one of Europe’s premier houses of learning and discovery in the social and behavioral sciences. It even opened a new 40-million-euro building downtown. It has a new rector-president: Michael Ignatieff, a distinguished Canadian scholar and public servant. The CEU wants to go on with its work developing knowledge in Hungary; it is proud to be recognized not only as an American university but also as a Hungarian university. Its faculty is one of the most rewarded and highly recognized in Europe.
Continua a leggere l’articolo di Leon Botstein, Carol Christ and Jonathan Cole “Hungary’s xenophobic attack on Central European University is a threat to freedom everywhere” pubblicato su The Washington Post qui
Un commento a “Hungary’s xenophobic attack on Central European University is a threat to freedom everywhere” – L’articolo di Botsein, Christ e Cole