(The Center Square) – Compromising “America’s academic freedom and national security” by allowing billions of dollars in foreign funding to universities and colleges without proper reporting is being questioned of the Biden administration by members of Congress from Kentucky and North Carolina.
An investigation has been launched led by Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives. The probe is confirmed in a Wednesday letter made public, addressed to the interim leader of the Department of Education from U.S. Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.
Foreign nations have given more than $57 billion to American institutions since 1981, and in the first Trump administration reporting was taking place. The congressmen say many didn’t with the change of administrations, even though the law requiring gifts of a quarter-million dollars or more has been in place since 1986.
“The disclosures,” Comer and Foxx write, “mandated by Section 117 remain indispensable because adversarial governments and their instrumentalities ‘have targeted the higher education sector for exploitation to infiltrate cutting-edge American research projects and influence curricula …”
Under Betsy DeVos from 2017-21, unreported foreign money totaled $6.5 billion across 12 institutions, the letter says.
“Notably,” the letter reads, “the Biden administration relaxed Section 117 enforcement by transferring responsibilities from the Office of the General Counsel to Federal Student Aid, an office that lacks the capacity to enforce the reporting requirements in a meaningful matter.”
The investigation requires the Department of Education to provide Section 117 compliance probes opened and closed since Jan. 20, 2021; referrals to the attorney general; an organizational chart of employees in Federal Student Aid; and documents and information tracking Section 117 disclosures by Federal Student Aid.
Denise Carter is interim secretary of the department; Comer is chairman of the committee and Foxx, a chairman of the Rules Committee, recently served as chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
