The Hungarian Foundation for Transparent Journalism has announced the launch of a new initiative, ‘Transparent Education.’ To mark the occasion, a roundtable discussion was held on Monday at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Budapest. The event featured Balázs Szepesi, economist, sociologist, and PhD in political science, and Bence Partos, psychologist and the founder of Transparent.
Why launch such a project now? Bence Partos explained that Hungarian universities have recently seen an increasing number of reports involving party political and ideological bias. The immediate catalyst for the initiative was the case of Balázs Orbán, political director to the Hungarian prime minister. His doctoral thesis failed to secure unanimous approval from the Doctoral Council of Eötvös Loránd University— two leading academics attempted to block his PhD purely due to his affiliation with the right-wing conservative Fidesz party. According to Partos, the foundation subsequently received an influx of similar accounts, prompting the decision to establish the Transparent Education initiative.
Guidelines, Workshops, Hotline
The project will primarily focus on combating ideological discrimination and abuse within higher education. To address this issue comprehensively, several initiatives will be introduced, tackling the problem from multiple perspectives.
First, workshops and guidelines will be developed for educators, aimed at helping them separate their personal political views from their teaching responsibilities. Second, an anonymous hotline will be established for students who experience discrimination in their studies due to their values or worldviews. Third, the most serious cases will be made public—handled with appropriate discretion and the consent of the parties involved.
The overarching goal is to raise awareness about the dangers of ideological discrimination in education and to sensitise both the public and the academic community to its impact. Additionally, the project will produce training materials to help students identify and address instances of ideological bias in their educational environments.
The Dangers of Cancel Culture
The roundtable discussion introducing the initiative attracted significant interest, with foreign experts joining the conversation online at one point. Among them were French political scientist Claude Chollet, founder of one of Europe’s largest media institutes, the Observatoire du journalisme (Ojim), and Dr. Ralph Gert Schöllhammer from Vienna, an adjunct professor at Webster University and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Chollet expressed his enthusiasm for the project’s launch in Budapest, expressing hope that it would soon be adopted across Europe.
The foreign experts noted that in Western Europe, the dominance of political opinion in universities has already intensified. They highlighted how specific worldviews and political doctrines increasingly restrict the work of academics.
‘In such an environment, students become like ChatGPT—they no longer express their own opinions but merely echo the views of their lecturers on a given issue’
During the remainder of the discussion, Bence Partos and Balázs Szepesi concurred that the primary role of higher education is to equip younger generations with critical thinking skills. However, they highlighted that if this is done through an ideological lens, the entire process becomes futile.
‘In such an environment, students become like ChatGPT—they no longer express their own opinions but merely echo the views of their lecturers on a given issue,’ warned Balázs Szepesi, underlining the potential dangers. He further explained that this could ultimately undermine society’s capacity for problem-solving and erode the foundation of independent thought.
At the conclusion of the discussion, the moderator invited the panellists to share their final thoughts on the topic. Bence Partos encouraged students to be brave and dare to think differently. He added that anyone facing discrimination for their views should confidently reach out to the Transparent Education team for support. He highlighted that students are not alone and assured them that they would receive assistance and guidance.
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