The House Education and Workforce Committee has voted to advance a bill that seeks to check foreign influence in American academic institutions by toughening requirements on foreign gift reporting by colleges and universities. 

“Higher education is one of the jewels of American society,” one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Representative Michael Baumgartner, said on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, it’s also an area that is often under attack and used by malign influences to subvert American interests.”

The bill, known as the DETERRENT Act, seeks to amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which lays out requirements for foreign gift and contract reporting. The measure would lower the threshold for universities to report foreign donations to $50,000 from the current standard of $250,000 and would require schools to report donations of any size from “countries of concern,” such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Communist China, and Russia. 

In addition, universities that are interested in entering contracts with such countries would have to receive permission from the Secretary of Education. The bill also mandates that schools report foreign gifts directed to faculty and researchers and requires private colleges to file annual endowment investment reports. Non-compliant universities would be subject to fines and could lose federal funding, the bill states. 

A factsheet for the bill describes universities as being “on the frontlines of malign foreign interference” and criticizes President Biden for allowing “billions of dollars in foreign funds” to infiltrate the country “undetected.” The bill’s supporters warn that “each dollar institutions accept from foreign entities that do not share American values comes with strings attached and undermines national interests.” 

The bill passed 20 to 14 on Wednesday with Democrats largely opposing the measure. Many of their criticisms, however, were directed at the Trump administration’s approach to higher education writ large, namely President Trump’s recent executive order to cut funding to the National Institute of Health for indirect research costs. 

“I understand and I do appreciate the intent behind the Deterrent Act, but if House Republicans and the president truly want to lead in America, and they want America to lead, they must permanently reverse the cuts to the National Institutes of Health,” a Georgia Democrat, Representative Lucy McBath, said on Wednesday. 

Representative Bobby Scott, who is a Democrat from Virginia, described the measure as an “arbitrary” and “potentially discriminatory approach targeting certain countries and their researchers.” The bill’s advancement was lauded by Republicans as a step in the right direction to thwart foreign influence in academic institutions. 

“Authoritarian regimes around the world, like the Chinese Communist Party, are trying to use lucrative financial ties to influence our students, steal research and censor free speech,” the committee’s chairman, Representative Tim Walberg, said. “The very first package of bills passed out of this committee sends a strong message: We will not tolerate any attempt by America’s adversaries to subvert our education system or exploit our students.”

Although the legislation passed the House 246-170 last year, it was not taken up by the Senate. The bill may have better chances of being passed into law in this congressional session given that the Senate boasts a Republican majority. 

The vote comes as the outbreak of anti-Israel protests on college campuses has generated concern that foreign donors may be promoting anti-Israel and antisemitic activities at American universities. In February of last year, funding records showed that Qatar — a financial supporter of Hamas — had given to or contracted more than $5.6 billion to 61 American schools since 2007, including Harvard University, Yale University, Cornell University, and Stanford University. 

Earlier this month, a Jewish advocacy group and think tank, the Zachor Legal Institute, in conjunction with Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the education department in an effort to secure records of Qatar’s funding at several elite universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.

The president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, called on the Trump administration to “expose the details of this foreign influence operation as soon as possible” and denounced what he described as the Biden administration’s failure to address “Qatari government funds manipulating American universities.” 

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Education, Linda McMahon, has made clear her intention to hold American universities accountable for campus antisemitism. During her confirmation hearing on Thursday, Ms. McMahon pledged to “protect all students from discrimination and harassment” and stated that the department “will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against.”