Threatened Academic Freedom in Hungary: What did US academia learn from illiberalism and Hungary?

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Protecting, Protesting, and Amplifying Academic Freedom

Proposal

In the United States, there has been a lively debate about the tension between freedom of expression and respect for diversity-inclusion (DEI) and the role of academic freedom (AF). In the debates within the academic community, AF is presented either as a harmful means of preserving the status quo of the academic community (Herbert, 2023) or as a tool to be saved from the cancel culture of faculty (Garry, 2023). Meanwhile, many Republican states specifically target DEI (see the so-called STOP WOKE Bills) (Hutchens & Miller 2023), and Florida seems to be the flagship of these changes. What is happening, there has many similarities to Hungary. Therefore, our comparison focuses on this state.
The restriction of AF has been underway in Hungary under Viktor Orbán for almost a decade and a half. However, a phenomenon of the same strength and impact as the Woke movement (and thus cancel culture) was not visible in Hungary. However, those academics who were engaged with the principles of the DEI became targeted (listed professors, banning the Gender studies master program, legislation against the CEU, etc.). Also, the government reorganized public universities' governance and ownership structure, which increased the possibility of political control over them. Most public institutions were transformed into private institutions owned and governed by public interest foundations (trusts). The boards of these foundations have almost unlimited powers over institutions (including academic issues), and their members were appointed by the state, mostly without consulting the institutions. These changes fitted the political ideology, which was called illiberal democracy by Mr. Orban.
We argue that the similarities between Hungarian and Florida higher education policy developments stem from their illiberal roots (Zakaria 1997 and its domestic implications, e.g., Csillag & Szelényi 2015, Author2 et al. 2023), which, in elements, is similar to the more recent Trump administration policies (Douglass 2021a, 2021b). The connection between the Hungarian and US policy is based on similar phenomena and the openly declared collaboration between the New Right ideologists and the Hungarian government. For example, in May 2023, Hungary organized the CPAC Hungary for the second time, and one of the sections was titled „No Woke Zone” (https://www.cpachungary.com/program).
Our presentation aims to show how Hungarian higher education developments impact academic freedom. We argue that academic freedom could be under pressure in Florida as in Hungary. For that purpose, we provide a conceptual model of AF, which is a collection of essential (freedom of teaching, researching and learning, dissemination, and self-governance) and supportive elements (tenure, institutional autonomy, and financial security) (Authors 2023)
We highlight how Hungarian legislation and government practice relate to the elements of AF and how Hungarian faculties experience and react to the changing circumstances.
We analyzed Hungarian law and institutional documents in our research and reviewed some US state-level bills. To gain a deeper understanding of the Hungarian context, we reanalyze 70 semi-structured interviews we conducted among former and current Hungarian researchers, faculty, and administrators in two research projects. The sample was a convenience sample designed to achieve diversity in terms of field and institution and to reduce the predominance of the social science field. The basic sample was also extended using a snowball method. In the first project, we were curious about personal experiences and feelings about AF, and tackling techniques, if any, in case of AF infringements. In the second (still ongoing) project, we examine the organizational climate before, during, and after the radical reconstruction of higher education's ownership and governance model. In our analysis of interviews, we focus on the ways of resistance in this context and the scope and reasons for choosing compliance.
Our presentation may be of interest to US faculties because it may help to clarify the concept of AF and how it can be used as a means of resistance, as a reference point, and in cases where it is abused as a bulwark by forces opposed to progress (Hutchens & Miller 2023). The absence of (strong) legal guarantees widens the scope for government (or other external) stakeholders to intervene. Systemic and potential individual consequences create insecurity in terms of security, leading to self-censorship. Self-censorship is dangerous because it has high latency and therefore favors isolated attacks that individuals have to deal with alone, which works against solidarity.
In conclusion, if any element of AF is missing, we cannot talk about the realization of AF. One of the most dangerous difficulties is self-censorship because of its high latency.
Since the Florida phenomenon is similar to the Hungarian situation in several aspects, we can expect an increase in self-censorship in Florida and other public universities concerned.
It is therefore important to concentrate forces against these trends: the academic community, regardless of the state or owner (private or public), must be in solidarity and support each other in making AF a shared universal value that can ensure, in line with the DEI principle, a free and critical debate that always respects the dignity of the other person, to preserve and disseminate scholarship, as this can be one of the keys to rebuilding trust in universities (Douglass 2021b).

Authors

• Zoltan Ronay, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Faculty of Education and Psychology

• Gergely Kovats, Corvinus University of Budapest