Baumgartner: DETERRENT Act addresses foreign interference in higher education
WASHINGTON- Congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA-05), Vice Chair of the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education, penned an op-ed in The Hill calling for the U.S. Senate to act on his DETERRENT Act to end malign foreign influence in our education system and put American interests first.
This comes after the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing titled “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology,” where UC-Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons failed to commit to full transparency on foreign funding.
Baumgartner writes: “Even more alarming, he admitted that hostile foreign actors regularly approach the university but claimed he was “not in a position” to name a single example. The American people deserve to know who is bankrolling our public universities. If UC Berkeley won’t come clean, it raises a serious question: What are universities hiding — and why?”
Baumgartner discusses how this is not just an academic issue, it is also a direct threat to our national security. He cites the Department of Education’s ongoing investigation into the University of Michigan’s discrepancies in their financial disclosures.
Baumgartner writes: “In January, the University of Michigan cut ties with a Chinese university over concerns that its funding could be linked to Beijing’s military-industrial complex. On Tuesday, the Department of Education opened an investigation into the university to assess its compliance with federal law and the accuracy of its foreign funding disclosures.
He continues: While I welcome the University of Michigan’s decision to stop the flow of money from the Chinese Communist Party, serious questions remain. Why were tens of millions in foreign funding reported late — and in some cases, misclassified as coming from “nongovernmental entities” when the money appears to be directly tied to foreign governments? What are they hiding?”