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Wednesday, October 28, 2020

China: The Corruption Of The Left And Higher Ed

One of President Trump's better cabinet appointment's has been Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the Department of Education. She has come out with a report that documents the failure of many major universities to comply with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965. You can peruse the report here:


Institutional Compliance with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965


From the Executive Summary of the report, this is what Section 117 is about:


Congress requires U.S. colleges and universities (“institutions”) publicly to report foreign gifts and contracts to the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”). Codified at Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), 20 U.S.C. 1011f (“Section 117”), this mandate requires nearly all colleges and universities to report, twice each year, foreign gifts and contracts the value of which is $250,000 or more (considered alone or in combination with other gifts or contracts with a foreign source) and to disclose any foreign ownership or control to the Secretary of Education. Section 117 does not prohibit institutions from taking foreign money; it mandates accurate and transparent disclosures of sources and amounts to the Department.


So, guess what?


The facts uncovered during the Department’s investigations and information collection confirm that many large and well-resourced institutions of higher education have aggressively pursued and accepted foreign money while failing to comply with Section 117 of the HEA. At the same time, higher education industry trade organizations have argued against donor transparency and sought to block disclosure of strings attached to foreign funds.


Who would have expected Leftist controlled institutions to behave any differently, and without any regard for national security or, indeed, for basic human decency?

The Washington Free Beacon provides some highlights from the report, which is unfortunately redacted in places:


Major American universities failed to disclose more than $6.5 billion in donations from foreign governments, including China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, according to an investigation by the Department of Education.

"The threat of improper foreign influence in higher education is real," Education Department secretary Betsy DeVos said ...

 

Per American Greatness, the report focused on 12 major universities--the usual suspects, you might say. In alphetical order:


  1. Case Western Reserve, 
  2. Cornell, 
  3. Fordham, 
  4. Harvard, 
  5. Georgetown, 
  6. Rutgers, 
  7. Stanford, 
  8. Texas A&M and 
  9. Yale Universities; the 
  10. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  11. University of Maryland
  12. University of Texas


Back to the Free Beacon:

 

.... While American schools are required to report the contributions they receive from outside the country, many have failed to do so during the past four decades. Universities receiving money from foreign nations, such as China and Russia, are often pressured to hold programs and events that portray those nations in a favorable light.

...

It was also found that Chinese technology company Huawei, which has been deemed a national-security threat by the U.S. government, "had financial ties to nearly all the investigated institutions." This is of particular concern due to Huawei’s efforts to gain a competitive edge over Western tech companies.

Chinese companies also were found to be working with at least one U.S. university on a research project involving crowd surveillance and predictive AI behavior, "which the Chinese government could potentially harness for nefarious purposes," according to the Education Department.


While it's reassuring in a way to know that the world still turns to the US for advanced scientific and technical research, it's discouraging to once again learn that our Leftist controlled universities are basically up for sale to any country that comes calling with money. But perhaps we're naive to expect these institutions of "higher education" to behave any better than anyone else in positions of power and influence. It seems to be a cultural problem.

John Hinderaker sums it up nicely:


The Left corrupts everything it touches. It has not just touched, but wholly taken over, higher education in America. So no one should be surprised at the corruption implied by illegally undisclosed billions in foreign cash.

In the last few weeks, we have learned that Joe Biden sold whatever influence he had as Vice President to the Communist Chinese and others for many millions of dollars. The Chinese Communist Party has spread billions of dollars among many American politicians and institutions, considering such spending to be a wise investment. With hindsight, it seems clear that they are right.


That type and degree of corruption has become business as usual for American elites. Donald Trump is regarded as an existential threat to their way of life and of doing business by those same elites.


8 comments:

  1. I will one day share my own personal story of dealing with a Chines National 'Doctor'who has birthed TWO anchor babies in Irvine.

    ....all I have to say is ..I'm shocked.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY

    And 6 Days till VoB day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The liberals criticized Betsy DeVos for flying on a private jet, staying at 5-Star hotels, and eating at 5-Star restaurants.

    Oh that's right, she paid for all her travel expenses out of her own pocket; which are VERY deep.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If Case Western and Fordham are on this list of 12, there must be close to 100 or more.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite."

    Eisenhower's last address to the nation upon leaving office in 1961.

    We can now safely insert the words "and foreign" between Federal and employment in the first sentence quoted. That quote also usually leaves GND'ers slack-jawed after first getting them to commit to the veracity of his military-industrial complex admonishment, which they invariably do.
    Tom S.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "The Left corrupts everything it touches"...

    "[T]he pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by no means unique to The Intercept. These are the viruses that have contaminated virtually every mainstream center-left political organization, academic institution, and newsroom."

    https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GG was Tucker's first guest tonite, and presented a list of institutions in the tank with the Dems: Wall St., Sil. Valley, the MSM, ....

      Delete
  6. Codevilla (at https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-election-to-end-all-elections/ ):

    "So long as, and to the degree that, the illusion of legitimacy stands—so long as the Right *obeys*, while the Left disobeys and commands—there is no end to what the Left can do, because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back.
    But, as Michael *Anton* reminds us, things that can’t go on indefinitely, almost surely won’t. The combination of the ruling class constituents’ fired-up *insatiability*, the rulers’ inability to *control* them, and the limits of conservative Americans’ *patience*, is sure to cause a *crisis*, that ends up in some kind of “Caesarism” of the Left or the Right."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Millennials, Gen Z increasingly comfortable with socialism, Marxism, activists say

    "VOC Executive Director Marion Smith attributes this trend shown in VOC's poll, as well as in other national polls, to a failure of American educational institutions, definitional misunderstandings and a double standard in media and on social media."

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/millenials-gen-z-socialism-marxism

    ReplyDelete