The University of Michigan is coming under federal scrutiny for its acceptance of hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign countries, some of which it may not have reported to the federal government.
According to Campus Reform, the university has received over $270 million from 38 foreign countries over the past ten years. “President Donald Trump signed an April 23 executive order titled ‘Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities’ which instructs federal agencies to enforce disclosure rules and require colleges to report the ‘true amounts, sources, and purposes of foreign money’ received,” Campus Reform noted.
On July 15, Paul R. Moore, the Chief Investigative Counsel and Assistant General Counsel Office of the General Counsel U.S. Department of Education, sent a letter to University of Michigan interim president Domenico Grasso in which he stated, “The Department’s review of UM’s Sec. 117 foreign funding disclosures reveals that incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely disclosures may have been submitted by UM, in possible violation of its foreign source funding statutory disclosure obligations.”
“UM, an ‘R1’ research institution, notes significant total research expenditures of $2.04 billion in FY24, including $1.17 billion in federal research funding from grants and contracts from and with the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, Transportation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies,” the letter continued.
The letter made reference to a complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice that Chinese nationals had recently smuggled dangerous biological materials into the U.S. for use at UM laboratories, adding:
Just five days later, DOJ brought additional criminal charges in a separate matter against another UM-affiliated Chinese national for smuggling biological materials into the U.S. for use at a UM laboratory. These highly disturbing criminal charges against UM-affiliated research personnel follow UM’s decision (January 2025) to close its joint research institute with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Announcement of the closure occurred subsequent to a letter to UM from Chairman John Moolenaar (U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party) which raised serious national security concerns related to China’s ability to use the joint institute to contribute to China’s “most sensitive defense programs, including nuclear weapons, carrier rockets, satellites, nuclear submarines, and fighter jets.”
“Other prominent UM officials have downplayed the vulnerability of research developed at its joint institutes with Chinese research universities,” Moore wrote. “Since January 2021, UM has submitted foreign funding disclosures valued at approximately $375 million and over 20% of those disclosures – approximately $86 million – were submitted in an untimely manner. Additionally, many of UM’s disclosure reports appear to include transactions in which the counterparty was erroneously identified by UM as nongovernmental.”
