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.