Chair Cassidy, Tillis Introduce Bill to Prevent Foreign Influence at American Colleges & Universities

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Thom Tillis (R-NC), and ten Republican colleagues introduced the Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions (DETERRENT) Act. This legislation would increase the necessary transparency, accountability, and clarity to foreign gift reporting requirements for colleges and universities in the U.S.

"The DETERRENT ACT brings important transparency and ensures our universities are not susceptible to foreign influence," said Dr. Cassidy. "If America's adversaries are using these gifts to infiltrate college campuses, we need to know about it."

"America's foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, are targeting our nation's students by stealing research, spewing anti-American propaganda, and censoring free speech by providing American academic institutions with lucrative funding opportunities," said Senator Tillis. "Too often, schools fail to report these foreign gifts and funding, leaving our adversaries with an undetected stranglehold on U.S. academic institutions. I applaud the House of Representatives for passing this important legislation and I urge the Senate to follow suit by considering and the legislation swiftly."

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, American colleges and universities are legally required to report all foreign funding. Unfortunately, a series of recent oversight efforts show that the current law is not being properly enforced and because it is so vague, there are also a concerning number of loopholes. According to recent reports, foreign entities, including adversarial regimes like Communist China, have been giving American colleges and universities billions of dollars with little to no oversight or transparency.

A Senate report from 2019 found that up to 70 percent of all institutions failed to comply with section 117 of the Higher Education Act. Section 117's loose legislative language, a lack of enforcement efforts, and institutions' refusal to adhere to the law have resulted in billions of dollars in foreign funds infiltrating our country undetected.

The DETERRENT ACT would:

• Slash the foreign gift reporting threshold for colleges and universities from $250,000 down to $50,000, with an even stricter $0 threshold for countries of concern.

• Close reporting loopholes and provides transparency to Congress, intelligence agencies, and the public.

• Require disclosure of foreign gifts to individual staff and faculty at research-heavy institutions to protect those targeted the most by our adversaries.

• Hold our largest private institutions accountable for their financial partnerships by revealing concerning foreign investments in their endowments.

• Implement a series of repercussions for colleges and universities that remain noncompliant in foreign gift reporting such as fines and the loss of Title IV funding.

Cassidy and Tillis are joined by U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), John Cornyn (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Jim Risch (R-ID), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO).

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