The Trump administration widened its investigation of large foreign donations at high-profile American universities on Tuesday, accusing the University of Michigan of improperly labeling some donations and disclosing millions in foreign funding “in an untimely manner.”
The Department of Education has opened similar investigations at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. The move comes as the administration carries out a pressure campaign to shift the ideological tilt of American higher education and discourage the enrollment of foreign students at universities. Amid that pressure campaign, the University of Michigan shut down its flagship diversity program in March.
Officials did not say what funds received by the university violated disclosure statutes, or which countries the funding had come from.
Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel at the Department of Education, said in a news release that the university had erroneously identified some foreign funding as originating from “nongovernmental entities,” even though the foreign funders seemed to be “directly affiliated with foreign governments.”
The department also submitted an expansive list of records requests as part of the investigation, asking the university to provide personnel files on university students and employees, records on research projects, tax records and records on other partnerships with foreign universities, governments and other entities.
In the news release, Mr. Moore also sought to tie the investigation into the University of Michigan’s funding to two smuggling case involving Chinese researchers working at laboratories at the university. The Department of Justice charged the three students in June, two with smuggling an agricultural fungus and one with smuggling “biological material related to roundworms.”
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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