American Schools and Foreign Money A House bill, the Deterrent Act, seeks more disclosure about donations from overseas.
Congress is debating how to address the intellectual corruption of America’s elite universities, and one idea is to require that academic institutions disclose funding from U.S. adversaries.
The House this month passed the Deterrent Act, 246-170, to shine a light on the billions of dollars that flow from foreign entities to U.S. colleges and universities. Some donations are well-intentioned, but China’s Communist Party and others have used money as a lever to push propaganda, filch research, and censor free exchange. Often the terms of these cash infusions are confidential.
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires schools that receive federal funds to report twice a year to the Education Department any gifts from, and contracts with, a foreign source of more than $250,000 a year. But the statute’s loose language—and lack of enforcement—has led institutions to ignore the rules.
A 2019 report by a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee found that foreign-government spending on U.S. schools was “effectively a black hole.” It drilled into the Chinese government’s sponsorship of more than 100 Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses. These programs are funded, controlled and largely staffed by a branch of China’s Ministry of Education known as Hanban.
The report found that “nearly 70 percent of U.S. schools that received more than $250,000 from Hanban failed to properly report that amount” to DOE. Most Confucius institutes on campus have since been closed.
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos improved compliance with new standards and investigations. The effort caused schools to acknowledge they’d failed to report some $6.5 billion as required under law, according to a 2020 DOE report.
The report also found that most foreign funds flow to the largest and wealthiest schools, often via intermediaries or through anonymous donations that mask countries of origins—including Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It found that some schools had contracts with Chinese tech giant Huawei (whose equipment and services the U.S. bars from use in government contracts), and cited examples of donations used to disseminate “propaganda” and project “soft power.”
The Deterrent Act—co-sponsored by GOP Reps. Michelle Steel and Virginia Foxx—would lower the reporting threshold to $50,000 for donations from most foreign entities, and $0 for donations from countries “of concern”—including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Universities would be required to provide more detail about gifts and contracts—including those to individual faculty or staff. Reports would become annual.
Campuses would need waivers for contracts with a country or entity of concern, and universities with large endowments would have to report “investments of concern” made with those nations. Much of this information would be made public—with some exceptions for privacy—and the law would impose penalties for noncompliance. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) have introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
Academic institutions oppose the bill, pointing to improved compliance of late while claiming it would prove too burdensome. Congress should steer clear of dictating classroom instruction. But taxpayers subsidize higher education with tens of billions annually, and the schools have invited scrutiny of how they operate with their contempt for classical liberal inquiry and tolerance.
Comments are closed.
