What's happening to Harvard happened in Hungary first

Boston Globe

2 days ago

Shattuck, currently a professor of the practice of diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, has deep experience in and knowledge of politics, diplomacy and academia.
In the 1980s, he was a vice president at Harvard, responsible for the university's relations with government, and taught at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School. He was an assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights in the Clinton administration, served as the US ambassador to the Czech Republic, and from 2001 to 2009 was chief executive of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
In 2009, he became the fourth president of Central European University in Budapest, which was founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros in the heady days after the Soviet Union and communism collapsed, with an ambitious mission to help revive academic freedom in eastern Europe.
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Shattuck's tenure as the president of CEU coincided with that of Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban, the authoritarian whom Trump has described as his favorite European leader. The
As Vice President JD Vance put it, when it comes to reshaping higher education, 'I think his way has to be the model for us.'
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Shattuck said Orban's attacks on universities in general, and CEU in particular, was in keeping with his populist ideology.
'His principal appeal was to a rural constituency, an anti-elite appeal,' Shattuck said. 'The elites were in Budapest. They were running the universities.'
Because Hungarian universities rely on government funding, Orban was able to control them with relative ease. Privately funded by the Hungarian-born Soros, a bogeyman in right-wing circles whom Orban accused of importing left-wing ideology, CEU presented a more difficult challenge.
While the Trump administration has framed its
'He certainly didn't do everything at once the way Trump has been doing,' he said. 'Orban did this over a number of years. He didn't use a series of executive orders. He used various pressures from accrediting agencies. As time went on, it became clear he wanted to shut down parts of the university.'
In CEU's case, Orban demanded action in three specific areas of academic disciplines: he wanted to abolish gender studies, end the study of immigration issues, and to dramatically alter the way the Holocaust was taught.
Shattuck said gender studies and research into immigration conflicted with Orban's vision of Hungary as a Christian nation. Orban rose to power as a vocal opponent of immigration, especially that from Muslim nations.
'Most disturbing,' Shattuck said, 'was that Orban began to characterize the Holocaust as having been caused by outside forces in Germany whereas history and scholarship demonstrated quite clearly that Hungarian participation in the Holocaust was local, not imposed by Hitler. You can imagine how controversial that was.'
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One of Shattuck's earliest clashes with Orban was over CEU's Institute of Advanced Study, a post-graduate program in collaboration with other universities. The Hungarian government had supplied a building for the program, but the Orban administration abruptly ended that.
'They made it clear they wanted to shut it down. We wanted to keep it,' Shattuck said. 'But there were no government funds used, so the institute continued.'
A few months later, Shattuck said, he was summoned to the education ministry, where he said officials told him if he didn't shut the program he would be accused of stealing state assets. But there were no state assets involved, and the Obama administration intervened, asserting that the US government backed CEU's autonomy and independence.
But if CEU won that battle, the war continued. To hold off Orban, CEU tried to emphasize its value to Hungary. Shattuck said school provided a platform for diverse points of view, including ministers from the Orban government.
'We explained the economic value of the university to Hungary, taking no taxpayer dollars in our case,' he said. 'We increased the number of Hungarian students. We worked with other Hungarian universities.'
But, Shattuck said, he drew a red line.
'If they wanted to work with us, fine, but we would not allow the government to make or mandate academic decisions,' he said. 'So we defended gender studies, immigration studies, history.'
Harvard President Alan Garber is trying to draw a similar red line
as the Trump administration tries to dictate the university's business.
Shattuck said he has talked to Garber, offering advice to him and other Harvard officials framed by his experience with the Orban government.
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He gives Garber high marks for
'He's reforming and changing the model, the way Harvard operates, providing broader access and diversifying the political opinions of faculty. These are things a university can and should do,' Shattuck said.
'My advice has been, draw the red line and stick with it. But also be very reasonable about ways to operate the university in the community. He (Garber) is doing that. Once the government starts making decisions about what can be taught and learned and discussed, that's when we've crossed into an authoritarian world.'
In Hungary, despite CEU's best efforts, Orban kept up the pressure, eventually
Shattuck doesn't believe Harvard will be forced to relocate to another country in its showdown with the Trump administration. But he said it's important that other universities and civil society in general stand in solidarity with Harvard and academic freedom. He notes that
'Two things to say about rising authoritarians,' Shattuck said. 'The only way to defeat them is to come together, and bring together people who are otherwise competitors. The second thing is to take Maria Ressa's advice.'
Paraphrasing Ressa, the Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shattuck said: 'You have to stand up now, because now is when your strength is greatest.'
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Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at