By Jerry Dunleavy
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/jerry-dunleavy
A trio of House Republican leaders gave Harvard, Yale, and a handful of other universities a week to hand over documents and other information on their foreign funding amid increased scrutiny about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign entities on U.S. campuses.
The GOP letters told the schools that “we write to further understand the effects of adversarial foreign direct investment in the U.S. higher education system” and noted that an Education Department investigation “has uncovered over $6.5 billion of previously unreported foreign donations” to U.S. institutions of higher education.
Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, James Comer of Kentucky, and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina — the ranking members on the Judiciary, Oversight, and Education committees, respectively — requested Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Chicago, the University of Delaware, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania provide answers about all of their gifts from and contacts with the governments of or businesses and nationals from China, Russia, Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia by next Monday.
The letters sent to the schools referenced a May 20 briefing from the Education Department, in which the agency “raised concerns about this level of IHEs dependency on foreign funding from adversarial states and the inherent national security risks” and noted that “the Committee learned that many countries use donation agreements or contracts (agreements) with IHEs, professors, or researchers (recipients) to leverage their money into some type of benefit, or quid pro quo.” The Republicans said that “some recipients” of foreign funding also “alter their decision making based on the donations received.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house-republicans-seek-information-about-chinese-funding-from-harvard-yale-and-other-universities