Federal law requires schools to disclose significant foreign gifts and contracts with the Department of Education twice a year.
The UC Berkeley has not reported hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from Chinese companies and is said to share information about “critical technologies,” so the Ministry of Education, released on April 25, is currently investigating it.
The research university will comply for 30 days in response to record demands on the issue, a senior official said during a press conference.
The announcement follows President Donald Trump’s April 23rd executive order, “End harmful foreign influence at American universities.” It says China and Qatar have little surveillance to push propaganda and are leaking billions of dollars to American institutions of higher education.
The official said these reporting rules require universities to report donations of more than $250,000 twice a year, ahead of the Trump administration, and under former President Joe Biden, they enforced these requirements to the Federal Student Aid Bureau.
No penalties for non-compliance have been disclosed.
In a news release, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said:
“Despite widespread compliance failures, the investigation of new Section 117 was not launched for four years, and the ongoing investigation was closed prematurely,” McMahon said.
There is no law prohibiting universities from accepting donations from any country, including China, Russia or Iran, but disclosure is required, senior officials added that the University of Texas is a good example of a school that complies with regulations and reports “all dollars.”
Berkeley has released a brief response to the Department of Education’s survey.
“For the past two years, Berkeley, California has been helping out federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues.
