Gulf donors drawn into controversy over foreign influence at US campuses
Six US universities are under investigation for allegedly failing to report $1.3 billion in gifts and contracts from Middle Eastern and other foreign sources.
Multimillion-dollar donations to US universities by Arab Gulf monarchies and other wealthy Middle East donors are coming under scrutiny as Congress and the Donald Trump administration crack down on Chinese and other foreign influence operations across the country.
Since mid-June, the Department of Education has announced six investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning for allegedly failing to properly disclose more than $1.3 billion in foreign funding over the past seven years. All six receive or have received funding from Middle Eastern sources, among them the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia as well as the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi.
In a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s investigations panel shared with Al-Monitor, the department urges Congress to step up its own investigations. The letter mentions allegations that Qatari donations to US colleges and universities “are made strategically to advance Qatari interests” while its recipients “agree to keep the purposes and amounts of such donations secret.”
Principal Deputy General Counsel Reed Rubinstein wrote to panel Chairman Rob Portman, R-Ohio, on Nov. 27: “Congress may wish to scrutinize more closely the goals and methods of foreign money sources, the significant efforts and corporate mechanisms some colleges and universities take and use to solicit and channel foreign money, the influence and effect foreign money may have on research and curricula, and the extent to which foreign money might provide the means for access to sensitive US government research and/or create insider threats.”
