President Trump’s latest executive order cracks down on foreign meddling in U.S. universities by requiring universities to be more transparent about what foreign donations they accept.
The Daily Caller reported that President Trump’s order, titled “Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” calls on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, not Linda McMahon, to determine from American universities where foreign funding is coming from and where it is being spent. President Trump aims to make this information publicly available.
In President Trump’s order, it read, “Protecting American educational, cultural, and national security interests requires transparency regarding foreign funds flowing to American higher education and research institutions.“ It was also revealed that during his first term, the Department of Education opened investigations on 19 campuses between 2019 and 2021. A total of $6.5 billion in foreign funds had not been reported.
The Daily Caller also reported that Harvard University has accepted over $100 million from China and around $1.6 million from “Palestinian territories” since 2017. This foreign funding has prompted questions on whether it could have played a role in the antisemitic protests and the failure to discipline students who participated in the demonstrations. Earlier today, President Trump slammed the university on X, calling it “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart.”
President Trump’s order seeks to protect the country and students from “propaganda sponsored by foreign governments, and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.”
In an official statement following President Trump’s order, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that colleges and universities have a legal duty to report foreign gifts but “Unfortunately, in the last four years, the Biden Administration undermined the structures the President built to do this critical work, allowing nations like China and Qatar to funnel billions of dollars to U.S. universities with little to no oversight.” According to McMahon, this financial infiltration allowed “foreign governments to steal taxpayer-funded intellectual property and reshape how our elite campuses teach about Israel and the Middle East.”
McMahon says that the Department of Education will restore American universities to a marketplace of ideas, rather than a platform for foreign propaganda.