The Pentagon has threatened 30 U.S. universities with the loss of federal funding
The U.S. Pentagon has ordered 30 American universities to review their international academic partnerships and terminate those that the agency considers a risk to national security. The institutions must complete the review, report on it, and sever problematic ties by August 31, or they risk losing federal funding, according to The Guardian World.
According to an unnamed U.S. official who provided The Guardian with a complete list, the directive was sent to Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and Cornell University, among others. The list also includes the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, San Diego; Pennsylvania State University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, Duke University, and New York University.
The Pentagon has not publicly named the universities affected by the directive. The agency’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, stated that it will not tolerate academic partnerships that could jeopardize U.S. national security. The Pentagon explained that the reviews are intended to protect taxpayer-funded research from unauthorized technology transfers, intellectual property theft, and exploitation by foreign adversaries.
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The directive is primarily aimed at ties with Chinese institutions. Last month, the Pentagon updated a list of 130 foreign universities and research institutions whose activities, according to the department, increase the risk of misuse of U.S. research and development. Most of the institutions on the list are Chinese, including the University of Science and Technology of China and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences. Several Russian and Iranian institutions were also added to the list.
China has rejected Washington’s characterization of academic cooperation as a security threat. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy told the Associated Press that Beijing opposes the politicization of normal scientific, educational, and academic exchanges and called on the U.S. to abandon its “Cold War mentality.”
The Donald Trump administration had previously tightened controls over American universities. In November, more than three dozen institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Duke University, could have been removed from the State Department’s Diplomacy Lab program due to hiring practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
