Rep. Burgess Owens led a committee hearing Thursday on the dangers of foreign influence on college campuses, where witnesses said there should be more transparency of how foreign dollars are spent in higher education.
“The manipulation of our children on American soil — paid for by the American taxpayer — is unacceptable,” said Owens, a Republican who represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District, in his opening statement. “And for those who facilitate undermining our institutions, it is traitorous.”
“Our adversaries — America’s enemies — some guilty of the absolute worst of human rights abuses, do not pay billions of dollars to educational institutions because of some ‘pie in the sky’ wish for humanitarian goodness. No. These dollars come with strings attached, which are then used as leverage against American faculty and students,” he said.
Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, colleges and universities are required to disclose foreign funding that exceeds $250,000. But a 2019 Senate report found that 70% of institutions did not comply with the requirement. Meanwhile, the Trump administration uncovered $6.5 billion in undisclosed funds.
Owens said these reports show institutions favored “profit over patriotism,” and “profit over love of country.”
In an interview with the Deseret News following the hearing, Owens said he is concerned there are people within the U.S. who provide foreign adversaries a “safe harbor.”
He said he believes those who run these institutions refuse to be transparent with taxpayers, and instead allow foreign governments, like the Chinese Communist Party, control over curriculum.
“To me, it’s a two-fold process: We need to make sure to harden ourselves against our enemy but also recognize that within our country, we have people who are working with our enemy to undermine our system,” Owens added. “And we’re going to make sure we change that risk of accountability to our educational system.”
Lack of transparency
One of the witnesses at the hearing, Craig Singleton, deputy director of the China Program and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said there should be “enhanced transparency and oversight, along with stricter, mandatory due diligence requirements,” when foreign governments give colleges money.
In his written testimony, Singleton said that four Chinese universities are partnered with more than six dozen American universities that also receive government funding for research and development, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
“The true extent of these and other partnerships remains largely unknown,” he said.
Sometimes, foreign governments funnel money to college campuses through nonprofits, which allows colleges to give donors anonymity — a widely used loophole, he said.
Singleton said, “passing legislation to prevent potential conflicts of interest on campuses is essential,” and he also suggesting improving screening of foreign students.
Weighing foreign interference
During his interview with the Deseret News, Owens said legislators could find ways to put pressure on college administrators who have not been transparent.
“How about we have the head of these colleges signing off right now?” he said, suggesting some administrators should resign. Or, maybe they should pay a fine that comes out of their endowment, Owens said. “There are things we can do.”
Owens said he plans to hold more hearings on the subject before putting together legislation.
The committee hearing also included a review of the Department of Education’s report on the lack of disclosure of foreign funds among American colleges.
“The Department transferred the authority to investigate these violations from the well-equipped Office of General Counsel to the underwater (Federal Student Aid office),” Owens said in his opening statement.
In his interview with Deseret News, Owens again raised questions about why the student aid office was put in charge of investigating and enforcing rules about foreign payments, since they are ill-equipped to manage this oversight requirement.
“We have a Department of Education that’s not doing its job,” he said. “For them to do that is pure arrogance, it’s skirting the law. It’s making sure that there’s no accountability and they’re doing it in the darkness where people don’t see it.”
Owens said the GOP-controlled House will pull back money from departments that aren’t managing their responsibilities well during the spending bill negotiations coming up in the fall.
Meanwhile, Owens touted the progress Utah has made in this area.
“There’s not a state in the union that is as innovative as we are, that thinks outside the box and cares more about our kids, and we collaborate so well,” Owens said in the phone interview.
He cited a state bill, HB346, that prohibits higher education entities from accepting any funding from restricted foreign entities. It was signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox last March. Florida has made similar strides, he said.
“My goal right now on the federal side is to point out to other states who have the same concerns that there is a way for states to start the process,” Owens said.