House Education Committee Advances Bipartisan Bill Cracking Down on Foreign Influence in Higher Ed

In a bipartisan vote Wednesday, the House Committee on Education and Workforce advanced a bill that would require colleges and universities to report foreign contributions at a level at which the law does not currently mandate.

The Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions (DETERRENT) Act, introduced by Representative Michelle Steel (R., Calif.), aims to curb influence in American higher education from countries like China and Qatar, the latter of which has come under increased scrutiny since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

If signed into law, the Act would amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires colleges and universities to report foreign donations that exceed $250,000. The new legislation would lower that threshold to $50,000 overall and $0 for what Steel describes as “countries of concern.” A 2019 Senate report found that 70 percent of all institutions fail to comply with Section 117 regulations, and the DETERRENT Act would close loopholes and institute punishments for noncompliance.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch. When our terror-friendly adversaries pour money into our colleges and universities, it’s safe to say they want something in return,” Steel told National Review. “As reports have found, these adversaries seek increased access, political influence, and even the suppression of certain topics.”

Steel drew a straight line from Qatari money in American universities to the spike in antisemitism on the campus in the wake of October 7.

“This is happening all over the country. For example, Qatar — one of the most vocal pro-Hamas, antisemitic countries in the world — has given over $1 billion to U.S. universities from 2011 to 2016,” she said.

And from 2001 to 2021, Qatar donated $4.7 billion to institutions of higher education in the U.S., the Free Press reported. Some elite universities have campuses in Doha, and as that report lays bare, have received enormous amounts of money from the Qatari government.

Since 1997, Virginia Commonwealth University has received $103 million in Qatari money for a fine arts campus in Doha. Cornell University, which has a medical school in the city, has taken $1.8 billion since 2001. Qatar has donated almost $700 million since 2003 to Texas A&M for its engineering campus, $740 million since 2004 to Carnegie Mellon University for a computer science campus, and $760 million since 2005 to Georgetown University for its school of politics. Northwestern University — which has a journalism school in Doha — has taken Qatari contributions since 2008 that have reached a sum of nearly $602 million. That journalism campus has a partnership with Al Jazeera, a state-funded media organization that has played host to Hamas sympathizers since before October 7. Khaled AL-Hroub, a professor at Northwestern’s Qatar campus, said on NPR affiliate WBUR after the Hamas attack that he had not seen “any credible media reporting” indicating that Hamas had killed women and children.

Cliff Smith, the Washington Project Director at the Middle East forum, told NR that the bill is necessary to introduce more oversight into where higher education funding comes from and how it is used.

“Foreign funding of American universities can be a positive thing, but not if it is our foes and ‘frenemies’ trying to gain influence for their own purposes,” he said. “We need substantially more disclosure of what any foreign funds are for, and what their purpose is, so watchdog groups, journalists, law enforcement, and others, can do their jobs.”

Representative Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), who serves as chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, told NR the legislation will help the federal government ensure colleges and universities are free of malign influence.

“We want to require the disclosure of the foreign gifts to staff and faculty so we understand how some of the staff and faculty and research institutions are coloring what they do, perhaps based on the money that they’re receiving,” Foxx said. “We want to hold the largest, particularly private, institutions accountable for what money is going into their endowment, for example, and how that may be affecting them.”

Shining a light on the financial contributions is not the only aim Foxx has. She envisions potential consequences for universities that do not comply with federal regulations on reporting these foreign gifts.

“If they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, it’s possible they’ll have fines or their Title IV money will be threatened,” she told NR. “So we need to know what’s happening, so we need to know what the consequences will be.”