Republicans say the Biden administration dropped the ball in enforcing rules related to foreign funding on U.S. campuses, as the Education Department has moved its enforcement back to the Federal Student Aid Office and has reportedly pledged to shut down investigations.
The Trump Education Department launched a sprawling investigation beginning in 2019 into the influence of the Chinese government and other foreign funding on campuses nationwide, asking universities to hand over a host of documents about foreign gifts, contracts, and any connections with Beijing funding. The department eventually singled out nearly two dozen different universities by the time former President Donald Trump left office, but the inquiries seem to be in a lengthy limbo.
Institutions of higher education are required to disclose publicly any foreign donations exceeding $250,000. The law, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, went largely unenforced for decades before efforts by the Education Department under the Trump administration forced numerous institutions to amend their disclosures.
The Biden Education Department under Secretary Miguel Cardona has been largely mum on the issue.
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Reed Rubinstein, the Trump Education Department’s general counsel, told the Washington Examiner: “The Biden Administration’s decision to move the Section 117 compliance program — which requires high order investigatory skills — back to Federal Student Aid is really a decision to bury the program. Among other things, this signals to the industry that the foreign money grab-fest is back, because the federal watchdog has been chained up.”
The Washington Examiner asked the Education Department questions about whether it would continue the Trump administration’s investigations, what Cardona’s concerns about overseas influence at U.S. schools were, what the department was doing related to Confucius Institutes, and whether the Biden Education Department agreed with warnings in October 2020 from then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos about the Chinese government’s influence on campuses.
The department did not provide specifics.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner this week, the Education Department reiterated its commitment to enforcing Section 117 requirements.
“ED believes in working collaboratively with institutions of higher education to address foreign malign influence,” a department spokesperson said. “ED has continued to promote transparency and makes publicly available information about reported foreign gifts and contracts.”
The Education Department confirmed it is “transitioning primary responsibilities” for rule enforcement “to the Office of Federal Student Aid.”
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“ED does not comment on open investigations,” the spokesperson added. “ED is also committed to working with individual institutions to take the steps necessary to resolve any outstanding investigations, but ED is not in a position to state when it will be closing any of the investigations.”
The Education Department said this summer that school obligations “apply to reportable transactions attributable to all foreign sources, including Chinese sources.”
