Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Chair, America's universities have long been the place where for better or for worse cultural trends tend to begin and then spread throughout the rest of the country. Unfortunately, in recent years, it has been for worse.

An ethos of censorship took hold first in American universities before spreading to tech companies throughout our broader culture and into the government itself.

Of course we saw most vividly on university campuses the absolutely appalling scenes of anti-Semitism that sadly also became part of our broader problem for the rest of the country over the last few years and even before that.

America's adversaries, noticing this phenomenon, have decided that targeting our universities is a way to weaken the United States. Infiltrating our universities is a way to influence our broader institutions and to influence public opinion.

You see, for example, a congressional investigation found that there were nearly $40 million in contracts with the CCP or CCP-linked organizations. This is just what we know about.

Institutions have accepted billions in anonymous foreign funds without any transparency or accountability. There was even a recent study from the Institute for the Global Study of Anti-Semitism and Policy showing how this has infiltrated K-12 classrooms as well as funding from Qatar ended up at Brown University which developed anti- Israel curricula that then went to 8,000 K-12 schools throughout the entire country.

The DETERRENT Act is a much-needed, commonsense piece of legislation that simply says if you are going to accept funding from foreign countries, you need to disclose that. After all, universities are massively funded in various forms by the Federal Government, so if taxpayer dollars are going to support institutions that are taking foreign money, we should know about that.

The requirements put in place by this bill simply say that if you accept a gift of $50,000 or more, a foreign gift, then you need to report that, and it is anything of any value if it is from an adversarial nation.

The bill also closes reporting gaps, including faculty-level disclosures and imposes real penalties for noncompliance, including loss of title IV funds.

The good news, Mr. Chair, is that over the last year or so we have seen a reckoning begin in higher education in this country, and we are starting to see very positive changes. A number of university presidents have lost their jobs, and universities are increasingly committing themselves anew to protecting civil rights and promoting academic freedom.

The DETERRENT Act will be an important part of that trend. I am proud to be a cosponsor.

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