The Trump administration is ramping up its investigation into the hundreds of millions in foreign funds pouring into U.S. campuses, according to a letter released Friday by the Department of Education.
Investigators launched inquiries in mid-June focused on the foreign money received by Georgetown University and Texas A&M University as the U.S. government steps up its efforts to track foreign influence on U.S. campuses. In an unusual move, the letters to both those schools were placed on the Federal Register earlier today.
The letters reveal the universities were ordered to produce years of financial statements amid concerns that previous filings from the two schools “may not fully capture” all of the money from “foreign sources” they’d been required to report.
By law, universities are mandated to tell the government about any foreign grants totaling $250,000 or more. The government is concerned that the schools may have received, but not reported, foreign funding through nonprofit organizations and other entities they control.
Investigators got specific with its new inquiry, telling the schools that they should’ve informed the government about money associated with branch campuses that each of them have in Qatar, a small but influential country in the Middle East.
Both schools have received hundreds of millions of dollars since 2012 from the wealthy oil-producing Gulf nation, which is by far the biggest foreign contributor at each institution.
The letters said this funding was being scrutinized, in part, to ensure that none of the funding was associated with any entity designated a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”
Georgetown received more than $348 million in contracts from Qatar during that time, including more than $340 million from the Qatar Foundation and more than $2 million in gifts from the Qatari Embassy.
Texas A&M received more than $222 million in contracts from Qatar over that time period, with more than $202 million coming from the Qatar Foundation, and nearly $52 million in gifts from Qatar, including over $49 million from the Qatar Foundation.
Investigators are also concerned about the dealings these schools have with actors associated with Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia.
The government asked Georgetown about any communications related to the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Originally founded in 1993, the center was named after the wealthy Saudi royal following a $20 million gift in 2005. Investigators also asked about the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. And the government asked the school to provide details about its relationship with the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab.
Investigators also pushed both schools for details about Confucius Institutes and other Chinese-funded initiatives on campus and told the schools to produce records related to their relationships with Chinese technology firms like ZTE and Huawei.
Georgetown reported that China provided $5.5 million in contracts since 2012, including $500,000 from the Agricultural Bank of China, $1.6 million from the China Construction Bank, and $1.2 million from the Government of Guangdong. Georgetown also received a $500,000 gift from the China-based Spring Breeze Foundation. And Saudi Arabia sent Georgetown $6 million in gifts during this period.
Texas A&M reported just one $426,930 gift from the Ocean University of China between 2012 and 2018.
In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said that “the Department expects colleges and universities to provide full, accurate, and transparent information when reporting foreign gifts and contracts.”
“Our national security depends on it, and this is what the law requires,” said Devos. “These investigations make clear that the Department expects institutions to take seriously these reporting obligations and that it will exercise its oversight responsibility, when necessary.”
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report in February 2019 warning about Chinese influence both in K-12 classrooms and university campuses nationwide. The report concluded that “the Department of Education does not conduct regular oversight of U.S. schools’ compliance with required foreign gift reporting.”
In response to that Senate report, the Department of Education sent letters in May to the roughly 3,700 universities, reminding them of their “important obligations” under the law. And in June they followed up with investigations into Georgetown and Texas A&M.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, committee Chairman Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said “if American colleges and universities are taking money from foreign governments, the American people deserve to know about it.”
“These schools have an obligation to comply with the law and I commend the Department of Education for conducting these reviews and ensuring they accurately report gifts from foreign governments,” Portman said.
Both schools confirmed with the Washington Examiner that they were reviewing the letter from the Department of Education.
A representative from Georgetown said that the school “takes seriously its reporting obligations and provides all required reports to the Department of Education every six months” and that they will “cooperate with the Department’s inquiry.”
And a Texas A&M spokesperson said that they “take compliance and security very seriously” and that they are “fully cooperating with the inquiry.”
This ramped-up effort by the Department of Education brings that agency closer in line with other elements of the Trump administration that have stepped up anti-foreign-influence activities.
DOJ launched its China Initiative in late 2018 to counter Chinese cyberattacks, economic aggression, and espionage. And DOJ has committed to increasing its enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The FBI says it is getting serious about countering foreign election interference from Russia and others through its new Foreign Influence Taskforce.
And Trump signed an executive order last month severely limiting U.S. dealings with Chinese tech giant Huawei — which U.S. intelligence officials see as a massive cyberespionage threat.
