New York, NY; August 15, 2024—The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has released a new, comprehensive foreign funds database. Over the past decade, the NAS has documented multiple instances of universities’ failure to follow federal and state foreign funds disclosure laws in high-profile outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and National Review.
“As we accumulated instances of undisclosed foreign funds, we realized the government’s enforcement and quality of information just wasn’t cutting it,” Research Fellow and database author Neetu Arnold said. “We needed something better for journalists, watchdog groups, and other interested members of the public.”
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to report foreign amounts of at least $250,000 in a calendar year to the Department of Education. But schools skirted the law. A 2020 Department of Education (ED) report found several universities failed to report more than $6.5 billion in foreign funds, primarily from China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The ED released a public portal that same year to increase transparency and accountability to catch bad actors.
This year, under the Biden administration, the ED closed the portal leaving Americans in the dark.
Arnold continued, “Our portal seeks to do what ED seems unable or unwilling to do–provide transparency. The ED does not provide data about who funded the gifts or how universities used those funds–we have filled in the gaps so that Americans can hold government officials and university administrators accountable.”
The NAS database fills in key information missing through its user-friendly database.
We filed more than 100 public records requests to obtain comprehensive information on foreign funds universities receive. For more than 70 universities and state-affiliated agencies starting as early as 2010, we go further than what the ED offers to the public by reporting amounts less than $250,000, providing donor names, and providing a gift’s purpose.
| Key Differences Between the NAS and Section 117 Databases | |
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ED Section 117 Database |
NAS Database |
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Amounts $250K and above |
All amounts |
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Limited donor names |
All donor names |
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Limited purpose of gift |
All purpose of gift |
“It’s important for Americans to know exactly who is vying for influence and why,” Arnold concluded. “We hope that our database will inspire lawmakers to finally force the ED’s hand to create a user-friendly and transparent tool so that Americans can track foreign influence in their schools.”
NAS is a network of scholars and citizens united by a commitment to academic freedom, disinterested scholarship, and excellence in American higher education. Membership in NAS is open to all who share a commitment to these broad principles. NAS publishes a journal and has state and regional affiliates. Visit NAS at www.nas.org.
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