The European Association of Social Anthropologists is expressing concerns over the sudden and unexplained closure of the CEU Refugee Education Initiative – OLIve (Open Learning Initiative).
With over 1400 students of refugee backgrounds having graduated from OLIve, the program is a globally acclaimed effort to support refugees and signals a strong opposition to increasingly authoritarian and violent forms of governance of people displaced by invasions, conflicts, and climate disasters. This is particularly important in a country like Hungary, where national politics are renowned for their anti-refugee stance.
The closure of the program is all the more surprising since OLIve had received a record number of applications this academic year and is in the process of solidifying even more its flagship position through an international conference and subsequent publication. The closure is a major blow for academic involvement in refugee support, and unwittingly contributes to silencing the debate on an urgent topic with earnest implications in terms of human rights violations and human suffering. The decision stands in striking contrast to the CEU’s affirmed engagement for academic freedom and to the values of democratic debate and support for human rights that it aims to embody. This is not the CEU we have defended when it was itself under threat of closure by the Hungarian authorities.
We deplore the lack of transparency regarding the reasons for the program’s closure and urge Rector Shalini Randeria to communicate clearly on the rationale for the decision. More than that, we strongly oppose the decision and reaffirm the necessity to maintain and lend support to OLIve, its staff, and its future activity.
