What’s New
The U.S. Department of Education is demanding that Harvard University turn over detailed records about foreign gifts and contracts, the latest in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the nation’s wealthiest institution.
In opening an investigation into Harvard’s reporting of overseas funding, the department is recycling a tactic from the first Trump presidency, when it mounted inquiries against 20 prominent research universities, including Harvard.
In a press release, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon accused Harvard of not being “fully transparent or complete in its disclosures, which is both unacceptable and unlawful.”
“We hope Harvard will respect its own motto and be truthful in its federal filings and foreign relationships,” McMahon added.
Jason Newton, a Harvard spokesman, disputed the allegation that the university has not complied with federal law requiring it to report foreign donations or other funds over $250,000. “As standard practice, Harvard has filed Section 117 reports for decades as part of its ongoing compliance with the law,” he said in a statement.
The Details
The April 17 letter, signed by Paul R. Moore, the Education Department’s chief investigative counsel, asks Harvard to provide a list of all gifts, grants, and contracts from or with foreign sources, dating back to January 1, 2020.
It directs the university to produce extensive information, including all names and records of communication with foreign donors and details about researchers involved in international projects. Harvard should share a copy of its procedures and systems for compliance with the federal disclosure requirements, the letter says.
But the Education Department request includes information that is unrelated to and goes far beyond the scope of foreign-funds reporting, among them, records for all international students who have been expelled or had their Harvard credentials canceled since 2016. It also asks for details about the funding sources of any research conducted by these students and a list of all university employees involved with the expulsions.
In addition, the department asks for information on all visiting or temporary researchers, scholars, students, and faculty members from other countries hosted by Harvard over the past 15 years, including their last known address.
Responding to the request, which the university has 30 days to comply with, could be a heavy lift. Harvard has more than 69,000 alumni who live outside the United States, in 202 countries. They are all likely to have been solicited by the university for donations.
Harvard technically cancels the credentials of any student who departs campus, whether by graduating or through expulsion, The New York Times reports. That means the Trump administration’s inquiry could apply to nearly all of them.
The Backdrop
The foreign-funds investigation is the administration’s latest salvo against Harvard since Alan M. Garber, its president, said on Monday that the university would not meet a lengthy list of demands that would have given the government enormous power over the campus. The administration has frozen more than $2 billion in federal funding, asked the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and threatened to block it from enrolling international students.
The president’s campaign against Harvard is unprecedented, but probing foreign funding to elite colleges is a replay from his first term in office.
In addition to Harvard, Yale and Stanford Universities and the Massachusetts of Institute of Technology were among those subject to earlier investigations. Colleges were accepting too much money from overseas without implementing proper controls to prevent foreign influence or theft of intellectual property, the administration charged.
The Biden administration later wound down most of the inquiries. The Education Department notified Harvard of the conclusion of its investigation in late 2024.
The rules on foreign-funds disclosure, known as Section 117 for their place in the Higher Education Act, have been around since 1986 but were previously not enforced by the department. Since 2018, however, there has been a substantial increase in colleges complying with the reporting requirements, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education. “Our schools have taken Section 117 very seriously.”
The Stakes
It’s too early to tell if the new investigation is part of the Trump administration’s “whole of government approach” to its clash with Harvard, Spreitzer said, or if it signals renewed scrutiny of foreign funds across higher education during the president’s second term.
Even while Trump was away from the White House, American colleges’ foreign ties have continued to come under examination by elected officials. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to tighten reporting rules, and a similar bill has been introduced in the Senate. In 2022, Congress lowered disclosure requirements for institutions that get National Science Foundation funding.
Individual states have also moved to monitor or restrict foreign gifts and contracts, particularly from countries like China and Russia. Among the states to approve their own reporting rules are Florida and, most recently, Ohio.
