The Department of Education launched a probe into the University of California, Berkeley, on Friday regarding the public school’s alleged failure to report millions of dollars in funding from a foreign government.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon is directing the department’s Office of General Counsel to enforce Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires that federally funded higher education institutions disclose foreign gifts and contracts worth at least $250,000 to the federal government every year. UC Berkeley is one such university that is being investigated for this reason.
The California university allegedly failed to report it received $220 million from China to build a joint Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, which opened in 2014. The Daily Beast first reported on the massive blunder in May 2023, prompting a House committee investigation in July that year.
The university’s neglect to disclose its partnership with the Chinese government raised grave national security concerns at the time.
Following an inquiry from the Department of Education in June 2023, UC Berkeley acknowledged its mistake and detailed its long-term relationship with China while claiming it didn’t know it was required to disclose the foreign funding.
“Berkeley’s responses revealed a fundamental misunderstanding regarding its Section 117 reporting obligations,” the department said in a press release on Friday.
In response to the probe, a university spokesperson maintained the school has been complying with the federal government’s enforcement of Section 117.
“Over the course of the last two years, UC Berkeley has been cooperating with federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues, and will continue to do so,” spokesman Dan Mogulof said.
McMahon accused the Biden administration of turning “a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses,” revealing “no new Section 117 investigations were initiated for four years.” Ongoing investigations were closed, the Trump appointee also noted.
“I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully,” she said, “and they will begin by thoroughly examining UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.”
The Department of Education’s action comes two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order, directing McMahon to require universities to disclose the source and purpose of their foreign funding. Additionally, the secretary was ordered to reverse the previous administration’s actions that allow universities to forgo disclosing those financial details.
A 2019 report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that American colleges and universities have received over $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts. It described the sheer amount of foreign spending at U.S. higher education institutions as “effectively a black hole” due to the lack of reporting.