Congress Must Ban Chinese Money to Our Universities and Professors

A Chinese paramilitary police stands guard on the Bund waterfront during China's National Day celebrations in Shanghai on Oct. 1, 2022. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Ever wonder why almost all our colleges and universities from the Ivy League on down have turned into “woke” indoctrination camps, with real education increasingly in the rearview mirror?

Look no further than the following from the New York Post:

“The University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million from Chinese donors shortly after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which functioned as an office for Joe Biden before he was elected president, was announced in 2017, according to public records.

“'The Penn Biden Center is a dark-money, revolving-door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high-ranking officials,’ said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center.”

The reasons for this “generosity” may have something to do with keeping Biden’s connections to China quiet, but UPenn is unfortunately far from alone in this apparent “elite capture” game that pervades U.S. higher education. Harvard has the honor of being the leader of the pack at $93.7 million, followed by the University of Southern California.

And that doesn’t include payments from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or its many fronts going out to individual professors across our country. While a few have gotten their hands caught in the proverbial cookie jar, who knows how many have escaped? Probably many, if you consider the myriad ways such bribes can be made.

Is it any wonder, then, that our kids come out of our schools spouting left-wing ideology? Or that Generation Z (18- to 25-year-olds) has by far the lowest rate of all generations, only 16 percent, of those “proud to be Americans” from a recent Morning Consult poll?

The Republican majority House is about to start a number of needed investigations. They should add the CCP investment in and, therefore, indirect control of our colleges and universities to their bill of fare.

Who benefits from the likes of critical race theory and the rest of the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) bilge taking precedence over genuine learning, even in our law and medical schools? It’s certainly not the citizens of this country that Congress is purported to represent—or even more, the young people supposedly being educated.

The CCP and their allies are who benefits.

Apparently, Florida Gov. Ron De Santis is eyeing banning “China-based entities” from purchasing property in his state because of the economic and security risks. Between those Chinese entities and Bill Gates, a fair percentage of U.S. arable land is already out of the hands of our citizens.

Congress should take its cue from DeSantis and ban those same China-based entities from investing in or donating to any part of our educational system.

This deserves top priority. Otherwise, we'll see the already-puny 16 percent of our young people with a semblance of patriotism dwindle down to next to nothing in the coming generations.

Who would want to contemplate the results of that?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.