How two new laws will help restore transparency and fight espionage in the Sunshine State
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CounterCurrent: Florida Turns Up the Heat on Foreign Influence
How two new laws will help restore transparency and fight espionage in the Sunshine State
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the biggest issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Foreign Influence; Reading Time: ~2 minutes
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** Featured Series - Gov. DeSantis signs Speaker-priority foreign influence bills by Jason Delgado ([link removed])
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Last week, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law ([link removed]) a pair of bills targeting malign foreign influence in Florida higher education—House Bill 7017 ([link removed]) and House Bill 1523 ([link removed]) . This crucial legislation will help curb propaganda, espionage, and research theft by foreign governments in the state, making Florida the gold standard when it comes to enforcing educational transparency and security.
H.B. 7017 takes issue with foreign gifts to higher education institutions and promotes transparency—an issue of concern ([link removed]) for the National Association of Scholars. Every year, foreign governments pour millions of dollars into American higher education, purchasing undue influence within these institutions and, in some cases, stealing research in the process. Laws regulating the disclosure of these gifts have been lax, only requiring schools to report gifts exceeding $250,000 per year. They’ve also been poorly enforced, essentially allowing institutions to receive funds from any foreign nation they wish without informing the federal government.
Case in point: Just last year, the Department of Education uncovered ([link removed]) over $6.5 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) in previously undisclosed gifts, including donations from China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—not exactly a list of America’s best friends. Secretary DeVos described the Department’s findings as representative of “four decades of pervasive noncompliance”; in other words, this problem has been really bad for a really long time.
America’s higher education lobby recoiled from these disclosures. A few days after the 2020 election, the American Council on Education requested ([link removed]) that the new administration stop enforcement of Section 117 (foreign gift disclosure) of the Higher Education Act.
H.B. 7017 lowers the disclosure threshold to $50,000—the threshold which the NAS has proposed ([link removed]) —and requires schools to specify whether gifts came from a “foreign country of concern,” of which it lists seven: “the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro, or the Syrian Arab Republic.
Meanwhile, H.B. 1523 increases criminal penalties for research theft, another issue plaguing American higher education. The Chinese Communist Party is by far the worst offender in this regard—the NAS counts 47 instances ([link removed]) of researchers who have been charged with illegal ties to China, many of whom, the government argues, failed to disclose their ties to the Chinese military or other CCP entities before receiving federal (taxpayer) funding. H.B. 1523 will help dissuade such insidious behavior by beefing up the penalties for doing so.
Some are critical of these two bills, claiming that the legislation will foment anti-Asian racism in Florida. For example, one Tallahassee resident—a Korean-American—voiced concerns ([link removed]) about the perception “That people are coming to this country, and they are, you know, they're going to have these secret spies to take over this country … That's part of the ‘Yellow Peril’ myth that is, you know, here in our country.” As I explain here ([link removed]) , this argument falls flat for several reasons.
These two foreign influence bills join Governor DeSantis’ stellar record of recent education reforms. Just a few days ago, DeSantis and the Florida Board of Education approved new guidelines ([link removed]) restricting the use of Critical Race Theory in Florida K-12 schools, a welcome move that will help spare the state’s students from this hateful, intellectually bankrupt pedagogy and that will promote unbiased history education in Florida.
The National Association of Scholars commends Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature for their fine work and urges the other 49 states to follow suit quickly. Congress should quickly amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act to lower the reporting threshold to match Florida’s new disclosure law.
Until next week.
David Acevedo
Communications & Research Associate
National Association of Scholars
P.S. Do you find yourself struggling to keep up with the panoply of social justice newspeak pervading, well, everything? I certainly do. To help us out, NAS Board Member Bruce Gilley, along with Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, have created a handy cheat-sheet called “Responding to Social Justice Rhetoric ([link removed]) .” I recommend you check it out—you may find the cheat-sheet here ([link removed]) .
Read More ([link removed])
For more on foreign influence and American higher education:
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May 05, 2021
** Cracking Down on Illegal Ties to China ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
UPDATED: A repository of 47 professors, higher ed administrators, students, and government researchers in America who have been investigated or charged for illegal ties to China.
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February 02, 2021
** President Biden and Foreign Influence in Higher Ed ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
In a new article for The Federalist, Rachelle Peterson enumerates the specific dangers coming from the CCP and offers to the Biden administration five recommendations for continued reforms.
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January 09, 2021
** Turning a Blind Eye to Chinese Malfeasance Does Not Advance Justice ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
An open letter from three organizations to President-elect Biden urges him to end the DoJ's China Initiative, denouncing it as racist. This will lead to less justice, not more.
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November 20, 2020
** U.S. Education Reform is Necessary for International Security ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
The State Department has released a new report titled "The Elements of the China Challenge," which examines the global threats posed by the CCP and sets forth goals to counteract it.
** About the NAS
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