The agency is demanding details such as names, addresses, and contact info of foreign funding sources.
The Department of Education has sent a “records request” to Harvard University after a review of the institution’s reports found foreign funding disclosures were “incomplete and inaccurate,” the agency said in an April 18 statement.
The request for records, made in an April 17 letter to the university, gives the institution 30 calendar days to submit documents related to grants, gifts, and contracts from foreign sources as well as other information.
Postsecondary institutions receiving federal funding assistance, such as Harvard, are required to disclose the source of foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more annually to the Education Department, according to Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
In February 2020, the department notified Harvard about the agency’s Section 117 investigation against the university.
The education department had determined that Harvard’s Section 117 reporting “may not include and/or fully capture all reportable gifts, contracts, and/or restricted and conditional gifts or contracts from or with foreign sources.”
In December 2024, the department notified Harvard about the results of the investigation. Harvard signed an agreement that it would submit amended disclosure reports for 2014–2019. The university also said it established written procedures and systems to ensure compliance with Section 117.
In the April 17 letter to Harvard, the department said a review of the recent Section 117 disclosures from the university found that “incomplete and inaccurate disclosures have once again been provided” to the department, in violation of the December 2024 agreement.
The department has asked the university to submit relevant records again to verify the “accuracy and completeness” of the institution’s compliance with Section 117 disclosure requirements.
Harvard was asked to submit a complete and accurate copy of its written procedures and systems aimed at achieving compliance with Section 117.
It must submit a list of all foreign gifts, contracts, and grants, as well as the identities of parties involved in each of these transactions. The university is required to provide full names, addresses, contact information, and other details on the foreign sources.
Furthermore, the department instructed Harvard to provide a list of “all visiting or temporary researchers, scholars, students, and faculty at Harvard who are from or affiliated with foreign governments and foreign individuals.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the records request to Harvard is the Trump administration’s “first step” to ensure that the university is not being “manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities, which include actors who are hostile to the interests of the United States and American students.”
“As a recipient of federal funding, Harvard University must be transparent about its relations with foreign sources and governments. Unfortunately, our review indicated that Harvard has not been fully transparent or complete in its disclosures, which is both unacceptable and unlawful.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Harvard University for comment.
