On 20 March 2025, The Nation reported that the University of Austin, founded as a haven for academic freedom and free speech, has numerous scholars and officials with connections to Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian government, which has restricted academic freedom in its own country. The article begins:
The University of Austin, the school founded by intellectual dark web champion and professional wokeness foe Bari Weiss, proclaims its “fearless” dedication to open inquiry, maintaining that its scholars and students “pursue their academic interests and deliberate freely, without fear of censorship or retribution.” It’s a rather awkward look, then, for the university to retain a dozen scholars and administrators with ties to Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary, which has consolidated state control over the country’s universities and media outlets in the service of an authoritarian agenda that goes by the euphemistic name “illiberal democracy.” (This week, Orbán’s government showcased the incoherence of this idea with a new anti-LGBTQ+ bill that outlaws Budapest’s gay pride march.)…
Key Points
- At least seven board members and five current and former faculty at UATX have connections to Orbán-linked programs and organizations.
- Multiple university officials previously worked at Mathias Corvinus Collegium, nicknamed Orbán’s “pet university” by critics.
- UATX, which was founded in 2021 and began classes in September 2024, markets itself as dedicated to truth and free inquiry.
- Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele notes that Orbán has destroyed academic freedom in Hungary while claiming to defend free speech.
One of the scholars identified in the Nation article is US academic Peter Boghossian, described as follows:
Founding faculty adviser at UATX Peter Boghossian was a visiting fellow at MCC [Mathias Corvinus Collegium], in 2022. He is now a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, another Orbán-linked think tank that has spent more than $1.64 million over the last three years paying American conservatives like Christopher Rufo to influence public opinion about Orbán and his government.
Boghossian was described in a GIOR report on the Global National Conservative Alliance (GNCA) as:
…best known as a “radical atheist” and for his 2018 role in the so-called “Grievance Studies” or “Sokal Squared” hoax. As part of the hoax, BOGHOSSIAN and two colleagues submitted fake papers to various specialized academic journals to discredit gender and critical race studies.
The same report explained the role of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in the Orbán government’s struggle to control Hungarian higher education and to create a platform for right-wing figures:
The MATHIAS CORVINUS COLLEGIUM, a Hungarian educational facility, is a key part of the ORBÁN government’s struggle to control Hungarian higher education and is the center of National Conservative activity in the country. This facility, funded by a massive gift of stock from the ORBÁN government, has sponsored events and teaching positions for prominent US right-wing figures.
A further GIOR investigation discovered background on the role played by the MCC in disseminating Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda. On 27 March, GIOR reported that Hungary has banned Pride parades amid growing concerns over Russian influence in the country’s politics.
GIOR reporting on Boghossian has included:
- On 20 October 2022, we reported that former university professors Ilya Shapiro and Peter Boghossian recorded a podcast in which they gushed praise for Hungary under Orbán’s illiberal rule. In that report, we noted that Boghossian was also the star of a podcast sponsored by the MCC titled “Hungary Can Be the Gem of the World.”
- On 26 October 2022, we reported that Boghossian was scheduled to speak at the MCC facility in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We noted that Boghossian followed up his talk with another Tweet featuring a Romanian student claiming there is a “big wave” in Romania rejecting the US and moving towards Russia because of the “wokism America is exporting to Romania.”
- On 12 November 2022, we reported that a GIOR investigation had revealed that Boghossian, a self-professed “radical atheist,” had been a business partner of Christian nationalist extremist James O’Fallon.
Orbán and Hungary have figured prominently in a developing alliance between US conservatives and European nationalists, a potential means for Russia to exert covert influence in Europe and the US using Hungary as a platform. GIOR has published a report on this alliance titled “The National Conservatism Alliance: An Opportunity for Russian Influence?” The GIOR report details the role that Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian government have been playing in the Global National Conservative Alliance (GNCA).
The full report can be downloaded here.
For more GIOR reporting on Orban and the Hungarian government, go here.
Disclaimer The GIOR utilizes AI to generate summaries of news items, including the introduction and the key points that follow. Any text following the key points is context added by GIOR editors. Please verify all information before using. Images are also AI-generated and are for illustrative purposes only—they are meant to represent the events or individuals concerned but should not be understood as “real-world” photography.
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