The University of California, Berkeley became the latest federal target when the Trump administration opened an inquiry into the school on Friday, focusing on foreign money.
The inquiry brings up criticism of the university’s collaboration with Tsinghua University in China from a number of years ago. It follows a series of executive orders released by President Donald Trump earlier this week that targeted universities he perceives as leftist opponents of his political agenda.
One directive asked for stricter implementation of Section 117, a federal regulation that mandates that universities report foreign contracts and gifts of at least $250,000.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced in a statement that the Office of General Counsel at the Department of Education will look into “UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.”
The university refuted the government’s allegations, stating that “UC Berkeley has been cooperating with federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues, and will continue to do so” for the past two years.
The department did not identify the nation, but it did cite media reports from 2023 on UC Berkeley’s failure to disclose “hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from a foreign government.”
The Daily Beast revealed in May 2023 that UC Berkeley had not disclosed receiving $220 million from the Chinese government to establish a joint Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.
The institute’s website states that the institute was established in 2014 in the city of Shenzhen by the University of California, Berkeley and China’s Tsinghua University with an emphasis on “strategic emerging industries.”
When American researchers collaborated with their Chinese counterparts in fields like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, nuclear technology, and semiconductor technology, U.S. tax dollars helped China’s military modernization and technological advancement, according to a report released last year by the Republican members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Berkeley’s researchers “engage only in research whose results are always openly disseminated around the world,” according to UC Berkeley’s response to the study, and the university was “not aware of any research by Berkeley faculty at TBSI conducted for any other purpose.” The university added that it would thereafter terminate the collaboration.
On Friday, the university announced that it was no longer associated with TBSI.
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The Department of Education accused Harvard of making “incomplete and inaccurate disclosures” and this week demanded documents from the university on its foreign financial ties over the previous ten years.
The Trump administration is arguing with Harvard about the university’s reluctance to comply with a set of demands on its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and how it handles pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
