Soros-founded school to close doors in Hungary

The George Soros-backed Central European University will close its doors in Budapest, Hungary, it announced Monday, after Hungary’s government refused to allow it to accept new students.

The university, long seen as a bastion of democratic values after the fall of the Soviet bloc, will move its primary campus to Vienna, according to The Washington Post. The decision concludes a long battle between CEU and Hungary’s government. 

{mosads}“The government has done an injustice toward its own citizens, the hundreds of Hungarians who work and study at CEU, and thousands of Hungarian alumni and their families,” said university president Michael Ignatieff in a statement Monday.

Though President Trump has criticized Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who has actively backed liberal causes and Democratic politicians, his administration at one time had sought to reach a deal that would have allowed CEU to stay open in Budapest.

Last week, however, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Cornstein criticized Soros, and not the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, over the dispute.

Cornstein, in an interview with the Post, described the nativist and nationalist Orbán as a “friend” and said Soros and CEU should have made a stronger effort to get along with the Hungarian government.