Chairman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China addressed the passage of the DETERRENT Act, highlighting its importance in countering Chinese influence in American academic institutions. "Today, we are taking a critical stand against the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to infiltrate and influence our academic institutions," Moolenaar stated. He emphasized the act as a "powerful response to China’s aggressive attempts to use financial leverage to undermine our universities and national security."
The act aims to enhance transparency, close loopholes, and make academic institutions accountable when dealing with foreign adversaries. Moolenaar described it as a "victory in the fight to protect our education system from CCP influence," pointing to a recent investigation revealing nearly $40 million in unreported research contracts between U.S. universities and Chinese entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party and its military.
The DETERRENT Act has bipartisan support and addresses this issue by strengthening reporting requirements for foreign gifts and contracts to U.S. academic institutions. The existing law under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act is considered vague and poorly enforced, which has allowed substantial foreign funding from adversarial regimes to enter the U.S. educational system with minimal oversight.
To counter this, the act lowers the foreign gift reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000, and to $0 for countries of concern like China. It also requires the disclosure of foreign contracts with individual faculty at research-intensive universities, closes existing loopholes, and enforces penalties such as fines and loss of federal funding for non-compliance.
The DETERRENT Act is seen as a crucial measure to safeguard American students, research, and institutions from covert foreign influence.
