The Department of Education again delayed a report on foreign funding to U.S. colleges and universities, the fifth such delay since mid-July.

The report under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act was expected to be released Friday. The department announced on Friday that it is again postponing the release, which is now slated to occur on Sept. 25.

The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter and filed a Freedom of Information Act request aiming to force disclosure of the report, the identities of those providing foreign funding and the details of the transactions following the previous delay.

The Brandeis Center blasted the Department over the latest postponement.

“A fifth delay in releasing Section 117 data is unacceptable and deeply concerning. When serious questions are raised about foreign influence on our campuses, Americans deserve to know who is providing this money and whether those financial relationships undermine academic independence, campus policies, compliance with federal law and response to antisemitism,” Karen Paikin Barall, the Brandeis Center’s chief policy officer, said in a statement to Jewish Insider. 

She emphasized the need for transparency to understand the relationships between universities and foreign donors and ensure accountability.

“While we commend Secretary [Linda] McMahon for her work to increase transparency around foreign funding, five delays in less than three months have left the American people without critical information,” Barall said. “The Department must release the names of these foreign sources and relevant transaction information as soon as possible.”

The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law urged the Department of Education on Monday to promptly release a long-delayed report on sources of foreign funding to American colleges and universities.

The records were set to be published last week under Sec. 117 of the Higher Education Act, but were delayed for the fourth time in two months, according to the Brandeis Center. The records were initially slated for release in mid-July. The Brandeis Center also filed a Freedom of Information Act request aiming to force disclosure of the reports, identities of those providing foreign funding and the details of the transactions.

In a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Brandeis Center’s general counsel, Evan Slavitt, said that the “repeated postponements are increasingly difficult to reconcile with the transparency objectives of Section 117 and the Department’s own stated commitment to publishing this information. Moreover, the Department has not publicly identified the legal basis for continuing to withhold information that it has repeatedly announced would be released.”

Slavitt emphasized that disclosing the specific sources of foreign funding “can be critical to understanding the nature of the financial relationship, including whether funds originate with or pass through foreign governments, state-controlled entities, foundations, corporations, affiliates, or other intermediaries.”

Given the billions of dollars involved, he emphasized that this financing raises questions about “foreign influence, academic independence, research security, and compliance with other federal laws.”

U.S. colleges received $5 billion in foreign funding last year, with Qatar being the largest donor.

Slavitt urged the Department of Education to publish the report by Sept. 11, as well as to make public all underlying disclosure reports from colleges.

“The public should not be left waiting indefinitely as one announced disclosure date after another passes,” the letter states. “If there is a legitimate legal impediment preventing the Department from releasing this information, the Department should identify it. If there is not, the information should be released without further delay.”

Brandeis Center CEO Kenneth Marcus, a former assistant secretary of education, said in a statement, “While we commend Secretary McMahon for her prior work to increase transparency, the American people have a right to know more.”

“Four postponements in less than two months leave the American people waiting for information about foreign funding of higher-ed institutions that federal law requires to be open to scrutinization,” Marcus continued. “Americans deserve to know which foreign governments, state-controlled entities, or their intermediaries are sending billions of dollars into our campuses and classrooms and what influence may accompany that money. The Department should release the names and transaction information without further delay.”

Karen Paikin Barall, chief policy officer for the Brandeis Center, said in a statement, “The American people have a right to know who is funding our universities and what influence that funding may buy.”

“When foreign governments and entities provide billions of dollars to American institutions of higher education, that information should not be hidden from public view. Congress enacted Section 117 precisely because transparency matters,” Barall continued. “Students, parents, policymakers, and the American public deserve to know where this money is coming from and whether it is influencing what is taught, who is teaching it, and the policies and programs our universities pursue.”

Following a report spotlighting Qatari funding in Georgia public schools, the state’s General Assembly became the first in the country to pass legislation requiring the disclosure of foreign government funding in statewide K-12 schools.

The Foreign Funding Transparency and Accountability Act, HB 1379, requires public school districts, public universities and technical colleges to report funding of $10,000 or more from foreign countries or entities, naming specifically Qatar and Saudi Arabia — the two largest foreign funders of American universities. 

The bill — which passed both chambers of the Assembly earlier this month and now awaits Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature —  was spearheaded by Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the Georgia Statehouse, as well as Rep. Houston Gaines and the pro-Israel Georgia Solidarity Network. 

In January, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a report showing that the Qatari royal family’s U.S. philanthropy arm, Qatar Foundation International, had spent at least $281,000 on education in Georgia — including K-12 teacher trainings, Arabic textbooks for young students and student trips to Qatar.

Panitch told Jewish Insider she tweeted the findings, only to be surprised by a direct and hostile response from the Qatari ambassador to the U.S. and his deputy chief of mission on X, who allegedly told her she was spreading misinformation “like you people always do.”

“Why did they care what a legislator from Georgia thinks? It was weird. I started engaging back and this went on for days,” said Panitch. The back and forth eventually resulted in her involving the FBI. “The moment he responded to me was the moment I knew FDD was on to something right,” she said. 

“We were all caught off guard after [the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks]. I think Qatar had a lot to do with the responses on college campuses. Parents had no idea that some of their kids were being radicalized. I hope we get more answers, but this will definitely help,” continued Panitch.  

The Georgia Solidarity Network, a two-year-old bipartisan political action committee supporting pro-Jewish and pro-Israel causes, proposed legislation crafted by co-founder Alli Medof, which Panitch filed a couple weeks after the report’s release. 

“We didn’t want to make it loud and attract the attention of people who might object,” Panitch told JI. “I didn’t want Qatar to come in and hire a lobbyist. We went to committees and didn’t get much pushback.”

There was, however, some pushback from colleges and schools “in an operational sense, asking how they are supposed to carry this out,” said Panitch.

The bill also faced scrutiny in the state Senate, according to Panitch, who said some lawmakers “didn’t seem to care that Qatari money had seemingly resulted in teachers saying that [late Hamas leader] Yayha Sinwar was to be commended or that suicide bombing is okay.” 

Ultimately, the bill passed the Senate 31-20 and the House 139-16. Kemp has 40 days to sign the bill into state law. If he doesn’t veto it, it goes into law automatically. 

“I wouldn’t presume anything” in terms of whether the governor will sign the bill, said Panitch, adding she has not heard anything that implies he would veto it. 

A second bill establishing a K-12 statewide Title VI coordinator, also crafted by the Georgia Solidarity Network, simultaneously passed. The bill authorizes the withholding of state funding from institutions that fail to correct violations within 30 days — an enforcement mechanism absent from comparable laws in Tennessee, Oklahoma and California.

The legislative session also secured $3 million in state security funding for the rest of 2026 for nonprofit organizations at elevated risk of attack, with an additional $5 million budgeted for Fiscal Year 2027. 

“The Title VI bill was kind of similar because we were also dealing with schools and universities,” Panitch told JI. “There was a part that mentioned antisemitism that we ended up taking out. The preamble still mentions antisemitism but we didn’t want anyone to think this was only for the Jews. It was the Jewish community that brought it forward because we’ve been dealing with this, but essentially it’s a civil rights bill for kids and everyone wants to protect their kids, so it passed, not difficultly.” 

Six months ago, foreign funding transparency was “not on the roadmap or priority list” of many Georgia legislators, GSN co-founder David Zalik said. There was already evidence of foreign funding in university systems, he said, but “when we went back to the legislators and showed them documentation [regarding the same for K-12], they were stunned and surprised.”

Following the legislative session, Zalik sees the bill as “a model” for adoption beyond the Peach State.  

“Other leaders in other communities reached out,” he told JI. “We crafted new language that other states want to emulate. Georgia is a state that clearly takes this very seriously.”  

Medof added, “We’re incredibly proud of the impact this is going to make, and not just on the Jewish community. I think every one of these measures are going to improve the quality of life of students and Georgians. Foreign funding impacts curriculum, ideology, faculty and research [for all students]. It’s not just anti-Jewish or anti-Israel, it’s anti-American ideology that’s coming in. The more we can do to shine a line on that, the better it is for all Georgia students.” 

Qatar is the top country donating foreign funds to American universities, and Cornell University is its leading recipient, according to a new dashboard from the Department of Education that displays foreign gifts and contracts provided to U.S. educational institutions.

According to the database, $2.3 billion out of the $3 billion Cornell has received in foreign funding came from Qatar, which is a key financial supporter of Hamas. Qatar has provided $6.6 billion to universities overall, significantly more than the next leading countries, bolstering criticisms of the Gulf state’s potential influence over American higher education.

In a March interview with Jewish Insider, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff defended the university’s decision to take funds from Qatar, saying that the “narrative that somehow Qatari funding coming to the university affects the university’s decisions or faculty courses could not be further from the truth.”      

“Virtually almost all of the money that the Qatar Foundation has listed as going to Cornell is spent in Doha on education in the medical school that Cornell helps Qataris manage,” Kotlikoff told JI. 

According to the new dashboard, American universities have received more than $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts over the span of several decades. Schools are required to report foreign gifts and contracts totaling over $250,000 in a year to the Department of Education as laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965. 

Following Qatar, the top countries funding U.S. schools include Germany, England, China, Canada and Saudi Arabia, with each giving around $4 billion. Harvard University has received the most foreign funding at about $4 billion from various countries, followed by Cornell.

School may be out of session for the summer, but officials from Georgetown University, the University of California, Berkeley and the City University of New York will be in the hot seat this week when they testify on Tuesday before the House Education and Workforce Committee.

This is not the first time that university officials have appeared in front of Congress to account for the situations on their campuses, but this week’s hearing aims to focus on more than just the anti-Israel activism that has permeated many campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza to focus on root issues, including foreign funding in higher education as well as faculty anti-Israel organizing efforts.

With that as the backdrop, Georgetown’s interim president, Robert Groves, is likely to face hard-hitting questioning about the school’s donations from authoritarian regimes. 

Nearly a decade ago, Georgetown took a $10 million donation from an organization connected to Beijing’s ruling Chinese Communist Party — more specifically, according to The Washington Post, to “the specific CCP organizations that manage overseas influence operations” — to establish the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues.

But that $10 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money Qatar is alleged to have sent to Georgetown. According to a study by the research institute ISGAP — which primarily focuses on progressive and Islamist antisemitism — Qatar has donated more than $1 billion dollars to the Jesuit school in recent decades. In addition, Qatar has long had a partnership with Georgetown that includes an outpost of the school in Doha. Earlier this year, the school extended its contract with Doha for another decade.

UC Berkeley’s own handling of foreign funding will be under the microscope during Tuesday’s hearing. Earlier this year, the Department Education launched an investigation into the school’s alleged failure to report hundreds of million dollars in foreign funding — including $220 million from China for the creation of a Berkeley-linked campus in the city of Shenzhen.

The CUNY system doesn’t receive foreign funding. But it is likely to face scrutiny for its handling of campus antisemitism issues, which date back long before the Oct. 7 attacks. A decade ago, CUNY’s graduate student union was one of the first to push an anti-Israel vote on Shabbat. 

In the years since, the school has seen a number of issues across its campuses and disciplines. CUNY Law School’s 2022 commencement speaker, Nerdeen Kiswani, said from the lectern that she had been targeted by “well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government.”

Kiswani, one of the founders of the far-left anti-Israel Within Our Lifetime organization, was a national leader of Students for Justice in Palestine when she was an undergraduate attending both Hunter College and the College of Staten Island.

We also expect a number of committee members to grill Georgetown and Berkeley leaders on their handling of campus incidents, such as the Georgetown’s support for a professor earlier this year who was alleged to have ties to Hamas, as well as the more recent call last month by the chair of the school’s Islamic studies department to call for “symbolic” Iranian strikes on American bases in the Middle East. 

Past hearings have proven to be significant moments for some of those testifying, as well as members of Congress. Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) profile was elevated following her grilling of University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard leaders — two of whom resigned shortly after appearing before the committee.

But they are perhaps most consequential for the Jewish students on those campuses — many of whom matriculated amid the COVID-19 pandemic after having lost out on key adolescent and teenage experiences. For some of these students, their desire to have a “normal” college experience was taken from them by the protests and anti-Israel activity that swept across campuses nearly two years ago. But still, many continue to apply to these schools, hopeful that the worst is in the past.

There’s a saying that has floated around many a conference, Jewish organizational board meeting and Shabbat dinner table in recent years: Jews endow buildings, their enemies endow what happens inside of them. Tomorrow’s hearing will see just how deeply those efforts have permeated.