Harvard and Yale are checked in touch with Russia and other enemies of American democracy

The Ministry of Education sent requests to Harvard and Yale Universities demanding to provide reports on receiving money from countries that “do not share American values”: China, Russia, Iran, as well as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It is at least about the amount of $ 375 million, according to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The bribery of the elite?

Harvard and Yale are included in the so-called “ivy League”-the Association of the eight of the most prestigious educational institutions in the northeast of the United States. Here is all the best - students, teachers, large -scale scientific research. Here are the largest financial funds. League universities are invariably included in the list of 15 best universities in America. Graduates of "ivy" form the elite of this country.

The data that the foreign ties of elite universities recently became a “gray zone” have excited the American conservatives primarily. The host of the FOX Lu Dobbs channel said American universities accept money from other countries for “propaganda and espionage” and support the efforts of China and other intellectual theft countries.

In the documents of the Department of Education, local universities are called "multi -billion dollar, multinational enterprises using opaque funds and complex legal structures for income." Moreover, the money received is not reflected in improving the conditions for students or reducing education fees, writes WSJ. As a rule, young Americans take a student loan, which can then be paid for several decades. For example, Barak and Michelle Obama completely repaid loans only in 2007.

In Yale and Harvard, the Ministry of Education was received on February 11 with a warning: in case of refusal to provide information about foreign contracts, grants and gifts, requests will be transferred to the Ministry of Justice, civilian and criminal claims are waiting “ivy”. “We are talking about transparency,” commented Betsya Minister of Education Devos. - If colleges and universities accept foreign money and gifts, their students, sponsors and taxpayers have the right to know how much and from whom. This is required by the law. "

The department paid special attention to the documents related to two Chinese telecommunication companies, Huawei and ZTE, which the Trump administration called the security threat.

The Russian "Kaspersky Laboratory" also came under suspicion.

The letters of the Ministry of Education also mentioned the Skolkovo Foundation, the Alawi Foundation, located in the center of New York and accused of connecting with Iran, the National Research Fund of Qatar, etc.

The investigation lasted a year. The Department of Education announced that since July 2019, about $ 6.5 billion in the form of “unaccounted for foreign gifts, grants and contracts” at Boston University, Carnegie-Mellon (Pennsylvania), the University of Chicago, the Colorado University, Cornell (another “ivy”), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Technological Institute, the Tehasian University A & M, Texas Medical University.

By law, educational institutions must report gifts and contracts from foreign sources worth more than 250 thousand dollars. Officials require records from universities for 9 years, thousands of documents that display agreements and financial transfers from organizations and governments of countries such as China, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Unfortunately, the more we dig, the more we find that too many underestimate the numbers of foreign assistance or do not report it at all,” said Minister Devos.

The arrest of a nanotechnologist

Checks of the “Poyshch League” began after the arrest of the dean of the chemical faculty of Harvard University Charles Liber, who was charged with providing false information to American officials about grants from China. On February 6, 60-year-old Liber, named in 2000-2010. The “leading chemist of the world” was elected to the US National Engineering Academy, becoming a 30th person in history that received the membership of three national academies: science, engineering and medicine.

And a week earlier in handcuffs and an orange prison overalls, the scientist was taken to the federal court of Boston. He was released on bail of $ 1 million.

If you believe the prosecution, the chemist and nanotechnologist from Harvard received fantastic money in China even for American scientists and hid them from the American authorities.

The lawsuit signed by the FBI agent Robert Plamb indicates that Liber has concluded at least 3 agreements with the Wuan University of WuT - WUT. These include the “Thousand Talents” contracts (sponsored by the Chinese government) for a total of about 653 thousand dollars a year, which includes wages and accommodation for three years, plus 1.74 million for cooperation with the new Harvard-Wut Nano Key Lab laboratory in Juan (at the Homeland of Coronavirus).

The US government did not provide evidence that Liber really received these amounts. In April 2018, when the investigators asked Liber about his connections with China, the scientist replied that he was familiar with the “Thousand Talents” program, but he was never asked to participate in its implementation. In a statement by the FBI agent, it is noted that the scientist also deceived Harvard, without reporting anything about the contracts with China. After the arrest, Harvard University sent Liber on an administrative vacation, calling the charges against him "extremely serious."

What does propaganda and espionage have to do with, “what are your evidence” - representatives of the US academic circles, mainly sharing liberal views, asking the audit. Remember the Obamov concept of the “global world village”, where everyone is working peacefully? The Harvard Laboratory of Liber was a "model of cooperation of the United States and China." Several dozen former laboratory staff from the PRC decided to stay in America. Now they are heading their own scientific laboratories in nanotechnology at leading universities. “I am concerned that an excessive reaction can damage scientific research in the United States,” said the President of the California Institute of Technology Thomas Rosenbaum.

Obama's Global Village remained a dream, as well as a complete rejection of nuclear weapons. Other times have come.

The Trump administration twists nuts against scientists and engineers working with the main economic competitor of America.

The program “A Thousand Talents”, designed to return to the Celestial Scientists of Chinese scientists, is called the Senate in the US Senate’s report. As noted in the document, there were cases when the laureates of the program brought with them know-how, inventions and technologies or did not disclose information about financing (like Professor Liber). The Chinese government responded to the audit by deleting the names of recipients of grants from public websites so that they do not become the object of the FBI investigation.

Andrew Lelling is one of the five American lawyers heading the so -called. The “Chinese initiative” of the Ministry of Justice, says about American scientists working with the PRC: “If the Pentagon or NIH (US Federal Agency for Biomedicine and Public Health) gives you money, we must know if you have double loyalty. The concern of the government in relation to China is justified, ”Lelling notes.

For us, this story is very relevant.

You see how the Americans act, the “security forces” will say and other supporters of a sharp restriction of the contacts of Russian scientists with foreigners.

I will answer with a quote by the American professor Robert Kattner, you have the right to disagree with her, but it’s worth thinking: “Contrary to the hope of 1989, that liberal capitalism and democracy will win, and the United States will become a model, (today) capitalism is more and more inclined to autocracy and corruption. The United States becomes more like Russia, and not vice versa. ”