Thousands of members of Budapest’s academic community gathered outside the Budapest Parliament building on April 2 in protest of pending legislation that could forcibly close Central European University, a school founded by George Soros.

The legislation has been perceived as an attack on civil society organizations, most notably those backed by Soros, a Hungarian-American philanthropist whom Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused of violating the country’s higher education graduation system.

The legislation sets up regulations for “foreign” universities, effectively applying only to Central European University, founded in 1991 with accreditation in the United States and Hungary. The US State Department has condemned the bill.