The Department of Education said Friday it would launch an investigation into the University of California (UC), Berkeley, over improper foreign funding disclosures.<\/p>\n
The department said the school may have violated Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, alleging that documents submitted to the department on the school\u2019s behalf were \u201cincomplete or inaccurate,\u201d according to a Friday release<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Higher education institutions receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose foreign source gifts and contracts with a value of $250,000 or more annually to the Education Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n In May 2023, the Daily Beast reported<\/a> that UC Berkeley received $220 million from the Chinese government to launch a joint venture with the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.<\/p>\n The department acknowledged the probe was sparked by media reports alleging the institution accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from a foreign government, but it did not specify from which outlet, article or country the information originated.<\/p>\n In 2023, UC Berkeley then acknowledged having failed to report millions of dollars in foreign government funding, as required by Section 117, according to the department\u2019s release.<\/p>\n The claims were followed by a 2024 report from Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party alleging that the school\u2019s research was contributing to China\u2019s military advancement, which resulted in a dissolved partnership between Berkeley and their counterparts overseas, according to The Associated Press<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Biden-Harris Administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities\u2019 legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses. Despite widespread compliance failures, no new Section 117 investigations were initiated for four years, and ongoing investigations were closed prematurely,\u201d Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining UC Berkeley\u2019s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources,\u201d she added. \u00a0<\/p>\n UC Berkeley has denied claims of wrongdoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOver the course of the last two years, UC Berkeley has been cooperating with federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues, and we will continue to do so,\u201d the school said in a statement obtained by The Hill.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s decision to crack down on UC Berkeley comes after the government rescinded federal funding from Columbia University<\/a> and Harvard University<\/a> over their failure to meet McMahon\u2019s demands for a complete overhaul of campus structure.<\/p>\n Columbia acquiesced to the orders<\/a>, but Harvard has gained widespread attention for challenging the administration<\/a> in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Education said Friday it would launch an investigation into the University of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions\/1257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}