Several American universities are fighting to block the release of documents confirming their ties to China, which are being sought by both the Department of Education and Congress, as reported by The College Fix.
The Department of Education’s General Counsel, Reed Rubinstein, sent a letter to Congress confirming that when the Department attempted to acquire said documents, lawyers on behalf of the universities claimed an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act to keep the records sealed. Rubinstein’s letter did not name any of the schools involved in the investigation.
As previously reported by American Greatness, several Ivy League schools, including Harvard and Yale, have been under investigation for failing to report all of their foreign donations. More recently, a former professor at Emory University was convicted for failing to report donations from the Chinese government.
The increased scrutiny towards American colleges comes as part of a broader nationwide skepticism over any aspect of American society that China is involved in, as a result of the country’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak. There have been calls for a wide variety of punishments for China, from efforts to remove American manufacturing to a ban on Chinese students coming to study in the U.S.