The Education Department sent a letter to UPenn on May 8, informing the university about the investigation.
The Department of Education’s (ED) Office of the General Counsel (OGC) is investigating the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) over the receipt of foreign funds and has sent a request for records to the institution, the ED said in a May 8 statement.
The “records request” was sent after a review of reports submitted by the university allegedly showed that foreign funding disclosures were “inaccurate and incomplete,” the department said.
Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, universities and colleges in the United States receiving financial aid from the federal government are obligated to disclose any gifts, contracts, or restricted agreements from foreign sources that are valued at $250,000 or more in a year.
Colleges and universities should also report any foreign ownership or significant control in their institutions. These measures are in place to protect the country’s higher education from foreign influence.
Despite this obligation, “UPenn has a troubling Section 117 compliance history, having failed to disclose any foreign funding until February of 2019 despite a decades-long statutory obligation to do so,” said Acting General Counsel Tom Wheeler.
“Although the previous Administration degraded the Department’s enforcement of universities’ legal obligations to disclose foreign gifts and contracts, the Trump Administration will vigorously uphold the law and ensure universities are transparent with their foreign gifts and investments.”
The ED sent a letter to UPenn on May 8, informing the university about the investigation.
The department asked the university to produce relevant records within 30 days, which include tax records from January 2017, copies of written agreements with foreign governments or entities detailing admission agreements for international students, and a full list of all foreign gifts, grants, and restricted contracts from January 2017.
The institution must also submit a copy of its written procedures and administrative systems aimed at achieving compliance with the foreign funding disclosure requirements under Section 117.
“OGC will investigate this matter thoroughly, ensuring that universities cannot conceal the infiltration of our nation’s campuses by foreign governments and other foreign interests,” Wheeler said.
