Dear Minister Balog,
As concerned citizens of Lithuania and European Union, we, the undersigned members of the academic community of the Faculty of Philosophy at Vilnius University, are writing to express our solidarity with the Central European University (CEU) and express our concern at proposed legislative changes to CEU’s status in Hungary. These changes would endanger the academic freedom vital for CEU’s continued operation in Budapest and would strike a blow against the academic freedom that enables all universities, not only those operating in Hungary, to flourish.
The CEU is a valued member of the international academic community and an important center of excellence that forms a particularly significant part of the Central and Eastern European landscape of higher education in humanities and social sciences. Not only CEU’s current Hungarian and foreign lecturers, researchers and students are active members of the national and international professional scene, but also many of the presently active Lithuanian academics and institutions in the social sciences and humanities have studied or cooperated with or otherwise benefited from the activities of the CEU in the recent past and continue to do so.
Restricting the operating conditions of the institution or its possible closing would be a loss not only for lecturers, researchers and students of CEU, but for all of us, the professional scientific community in the region. The government’s proposed legislation to alter its statute of operation in Hungary would compromise its academic freedom and set a dangerous precedent for academic life in other countries.
We respectfully urge the Hungarian government to withdraw the proposed legislation and enter consultation with CEU, bearing in mind the damage such legislation might do to Hungary’s well-founded international academic reputation, to its relationships with its European and other international partners.
Yours sincerely,
Arūnas Poviliūnas, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy
Marius Povilas Šaulauskas, Professor, Head of Dept. of Logic and History of Philosophy
Aleksandras Dobryninas, Professor
Skirmantas Jankauskas, Professor
Algimantas Čepas, Associate professor
Jonas Dagys, Associate professor
Mintautas Gutauskas, Associate professor
Kęstas Kirtiklis, Associate professor
Arūnas Mickevičius, Associate professor
Nerijus Milerius, Associate professor
Nijolė Radavičienė, Associate professor
Kristupas Sabolius, Associate professor
Rūta Žiliukaitė, Associate professor
Renata Bikauskaitė, Lecturer
Jonas Čiurlionis, Lecturer
Vilius Dranseika, Lecturer
Laimutė Jakavonytė, Lecturer
Andrius Navickas, Lecturer
Milda Baltrimienė, Doctoral student
Justas Bujokas, Doctoral student
Simas Čelutka, Doctoral student
Andrius Dovydėnas, Doctoral student
Brigita Gelžinytė, Doctoral student
Mindaugas Gilaitis, Doctoral student
Agnė Girkontaitė, Doctoral student
Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Doctoral student
Aistė Noreikaitė, Doctoral student
Živilė Pabijutaitė, Doctoral student
Virgilijus Petuška, Doctoral student
Milda Pivoriūtė, Doctoral student
Paulius Rimkevičius, Doctoral student
Mindaugas Šulskus, Doctoral student
CC: Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary; Office of the Prime Minister; Central European University