WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) led the introduction of the Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions (DETERRENT) Act, legislation that brings much-needed transparency, accountability, and clarity to foreign gift reporting requirements for American colleges and universities. Joining Senators Tillis and Cassidy were 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). 

“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 unchecked influence over U.S. academic institutions. The DETERRENT Act is essential to countering this threat and safeguarding our educational integrity. I applaud the House of Representatives for passing this important legislation and I urge the Senate to take swift action to take up and pass this legislation.” 

“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.”

Background:

The DETERRENT Act:

• Slashes 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.
• Closes reporting loopholes and provides transparency to Congress, intelligence agencies, and the public.
• Requires disclosure of foreign gifts to individual staff and faculty at research-heavy institutions to protect those targeted the most by our adversaries.
• Holds our largest private institutions accountable for their financial partnerships by revealing concerning foreign investments in their endowments.
• Implements 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.

Currently, colleges and universities are legally required to report foreign funding under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. However, a series of recent oversight efforts make alarmingly clear the law is vague, poorly enforced, and full of loopholes. Recent reports show billions in foreign money, often from adversarial regimes like the Chinese Communist Party, coming into U.S. campuses with little to no oversight or transparency. The single biggest enforcement tool to protect against the threats posed by foreign adversaries is in desperate need of reform.

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.

A one-pager of the legislation is available HERE. Full text of the legislation is available HERE.

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