A new report from the National Association of Scholars (NAS) reveals that U.S. universities are receiving billions of dollars from “adversarial countries.”
The report, called “Shadows of Influence: Uncovering Hidden Foreign Funds to American Universities,” explains that large amounts of undisclosed funding may be a reason as to why pro-Hamas demonstrations have surged on college campuses.
NAS compiled information from public records requests, finding that universities failed to disclose more than 50% of their gifts.
According to NAS Fellow and report author Neetu Arnold, once universities “knew the Biden Department of Education would no longer investigate underreporting, some universities stopped reporting altogether. And to add insult to injury, the ED closed the public portal created by the ED under Trump.”
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) requires universities to report contracts, gifts, and grants they receive from foreign countries. All foreign gifts that total at least $250,000 within a calendar year are to be reported.
The report highlights that the Qatari government has “donated billions of dollars to American universities and think tanks over the past two decades, a fact that has attracted periodic criticism but rarely the level of scrutiny it garnered by the end of 2023.”
Qatari investment in U.S. campuses led to “compromises on freedom of expression to appease Qatar’s authoritarian government,” the report describes. According to the report, Qatar emerged as a “focal point for those concerned with the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda in the United States.”
Prior to publishing the report, however, NAS exposed “close to $1 billion of underreporting of foreign funds from China, Qatar, and Russia by comparing Section 117 data with data from public records requests,” the report notes.
To increase transparency and enforce the reporting requirement for universities, Arnold recommends that donor names and gifts be accessible to the public. Universities that fail to follow the law should be penalized, he asserts. “For each unreported item to Section 117, lawmakers should set a fine of above 100% of the value of the gift or contract along with a minimum,” he writes.”
Arnold said in a press release that when “American college students stump for foreign terrorist organizations and authoritarian governments, we must wonder where and how they receive such propaganda.”
“The hundreds of millions spent by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and Russia are a good place to begin the search. Section 117 could help lead the way should the desire to strengthen American security and better American education overcome the lobbying power of higher education and foreign governments.”
