The United States Department of Education announced it is investigating the University of California, Berkeley for not reporting significant funding from the Chinese government.
“The Biden-Harris Administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining U.C. Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.”
A 2023 House of Representatives investigation found Berkeley violated Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires disclosure of foreign funding over $250,000, saying Chinese funding of American research institutions facilitates transfer of American-funded technology with military applications to the Chinese government.
“U.S.-Chinese joint education institutes like U.C. Berkeley’s partnership with Tsinghua University, and the University of Pittsburgh’s partnership with Sichuan University, serve as conduits for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise to China, including to entities linked to China’s defense machine and the security apparatus it uses to facilitate human rights abuses,” said Select Committee on the CCP in a report.
At the time, Berkeley told the committee that it is “relinquishing all ownership” in the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.
It also cited a Trump administration executive order directing the DOE to launch Section 117 investigations to secure compliance with reporting requirements that must be followed to continue receiving federal grant funding.
In its announcement last week of a similar Section 117 investigation into Harvard University, DOE noted, “Noncompliance risks Department of Justice enforcement, including civil actions, or loss of federal funding eligibility.”
The Department of Education says that “Berkeley’s responses revealed a fundamental misunderstanding regarding its Section 117 reporting obligations” in justifying its renewed investigation.
