Skip to main content.
OSUN
  • Education sub-menuEducation

    With a strong emphasis on student-centered learning, critical literacy, and liberal arts and sciences education, OSUN creates diverse global classrooms of students who learn from each other and collectively develop a culture of dialogue and debate.

    • Teaching
      • Birkbeck Summer School
      • Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP)
      • Developing Teaching Professionals
      • Global History Lab
      • Global Teaching Fellowship Program
      • GLOBALED
      • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
      • Network Collaborative Courses
      • OSUN Courses
    • Threatened Scholars
      Initiative

    • Mobility

    • Certificate Programs
    • Curricula
      • CORUSUS
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
      • Economic Policy Addressing Inequality and Poverty
      • Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network
      • Human Rights Program
      • Liberal Arts and Sciences Collaborative
      • Policy Labs
      • Professional Development Program for University Administrators
      • Public Health and Human Rights
      • Strengthening the Core
      • Transnational Politics
      • Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice
  • Research sub-menuResearch

    OSUN promotes collaboration across its partner institutions, including the codesign of research projects, to explore issues of global and local relevance through socially engaged research, interdisciplinary collaboration, or comparative research.

    • Research Projects
      • The Democracy Institute
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
      • Engaged Scholarship
      • GEOHUB
      • Global Institute of Advanced Study
      • Global Observatory on Academic Freedom
      • Interruptrr
      • Open Society Research Platform
      • Research Creation Initiative
      • Senior Projects
    • Fellowships
      • Chatham House Academy Fellowships
      • Global Scholars Academy
      • Modular Doctoral Program
  • Access sub-menuAccess

    OSUN expands access to higher education by creating new pathways for underserved communities. Academic integration and connected learning bring educational opportunities to students beyond OSUN’s brick-and-mortar campuses.

    • Teacher Education
      • Enhanced Network Teacher Education Capacity
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
    • Education Pathways
      • Collaborative for Liberal Education for Adolescents
      • Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison
      • English Learner Success in Content Classrooms
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
      • Microcollege for Just Community Leadership
      • OLIve
      • Roma Equity in Higher Education
      • The Socrates Project
  • Civic sub-menuCivic Engagement

    With a belief in the public purpose of higher education, civic engagement across OSUN promotes best practices and bold new initiatives to help students, faculty, and institutions realize their full potential as community actors and educators.

    • Student Engagement
      • Global Commons
      • Global Debate Network
      • Global Engagement Fellows
      • Get Engaged Conference
      • Online Arts Workshop
      • Student-Led Initiatives
      • Student Life Initiatives Project (SLIP)
    • Engaged Learning
      • Certificate in Civic Engagement
      • Community Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences
      • Engaged Scholarship
      • Engaged Senior Projects
      • OSUN Science Shop
      • Solve Climate by 2030
  • News sub-menuNews + Opportunities

    OSUN offers myriad opportunities and events to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and scholars, and faculty. News and features provide updates on project impacts and the people involved.

    • Newsroom
      • Current News         
      • News Archive
    • Events
      • Current Events
      • Events Archive
    • Opportunities
      • Current Opportunities
      • Student Opportunities
      • Faculty Opportunities
      • Opportunities Archive
  • Resources sub-menuResources

    OSUN faculty and institutions have worked collectively to assemble this dynamic collection of student-centered teaching methodologies and instructional strategies. Whether working online, in person, or in a blended context, establishing a clear and consistent communication plan with students is central to all of these practices.

    • OSUN Resources
      • Academic Technology Guides
      • Blended Learning Toolkit
  • About sub-menuAbout

    OSUN aims to educate students for tomorrow’s global challenges, fostering critical thinking and open intellectual inquiry to strengthen the foundations of open society amid the current authoritarian resurgence.

    • About OSUN
      • Our Vision
      • Who We Are
      • What We Do
      • Member Institutions
      • Themes
      • Annual Report
  • Search
News & Events Menu
  • Newsroom
    • Current News
    • News Archive
  • Events
    • Current Events
    • Events Archive
  • Opportunities
    • Current Opportunities
    • Opportunities Archive

OSUN News

View all news

"A Conservative Counter Attack": Former Central European University President and Student Activists Discuss Assaults on Academic Freedom in Hungary and Florida

"We may have been the first domino that they’ve attacked, but we know that we’re not going to be the last, said Josh Epstein, New College of Florida student and activist, pictured here. Photo courtesy of D.E.F.Y. (Defending Educational Freedom for Youth).
In a conversation last Friday between Michael Ignatieff, rector emeritus and former president of Central European University (CEU), and Fatima Ismatulla and Josh Epstein, student leaders from New College of Florida representing the activist group D.E.F.Y. (Defending Educational Freedom for Youth), Ignatieff discussed the lessons learned from Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s assault on academic freedom in Hungary, including the expulsion of CEU from the country, and how they relate to the current government interference at New College from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. 

The event, “Academic Freedom in the Balance,” was cosponsored by the Open Society University Network’s Liberal Arts Collaborative, Central European University's Democracy Institute, Bard Center for Civic Engagement, and D.E.F.Y. The talk was moderated by Kyaw Moe Tun, head of the Open Society University Network’s Liberal Arts Collaborative based at Bard College and President of Parami University in Myanmar.

New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college, has recently undergone major changes implemented by DeSantis: half of its Board of Trustees has been replaced, its president dismissed, and new board members are threatening major changes to teaching and curricula, particularly on issues pertaining to race and gender. 

“What we’re seeing is that this puts Florida at a big risk of a brain drain,” Ismatulla said, noting that without an environment that supports tenure in numerous areas of study, talented educators would seek out positions in other states. “If we’re going to lose such important professors, such individuals who encourage us to think critically, then we’re not going to have the tools necessary that we were promised when we dropped our enrollment deposits at this institution, or any Florida institution that’s going to be under attack because of politics.” 

Ignatieff expressed outrage at the government interference at New College and characterized it as a "conservative counter attack" against basic democratic ideas. In the context of his experience struggling for academic freedom at CEU, he said the goal of Orban, DeSantis, and their supporters is to “create wedge issues that build their brand with conservative voters and if they smash up academic life in the process, they don’t care.” 

 

The conversation also addressed the national implications that DeSantis’s actions may have for higher education. DeSantis “appears to be set to run to be president,” Ignatieff said. “Were he to be successful nationally, he will then want to make these programs go national. And so, potentially this little story about New College is a huge national story about the future of higher education in the United States.” 

Independent self-governing institutions are a critical part of democracy, and one of the goals of D.E.F.Y is to provide resources to enable other institutions of higher learning to fight back against government intrusion. “We may have been the first domino that they’ve attacked, but we know that we’re not going to be the last. We know they’re going to expand their attacks on educational freedom, so we’re launching D.E.FY, ” said Epstein. “We’d like to build a broad coalition of alumni, faculty, parents, and students from universities across the country so we can set up chapters in universities, so that we make politicians think twice before they attack a university.”

Post Date: 03-14-2023
Open Society University Network
For more information contact: 
[email protected]