Foreign funny money flooding America’s universities
Stanley Kurtz put out a call to the blogosphere to analyze public records he obtained detailing foreign money donations to U.S. colleges and universities.
You can take a look at the data here.
Kurtz wrote:
The first question we can ask is whether all institutions that ought to be reporting foreign gifts are in fact doing so. The University of Michigan reported a number of foreign gifts between 1992 and 1996, yet appears not to have reported any gifts after that date. Is this because the university has received no large foreign gifts since 1996, or because it has failed to report them? Or is there another explanation for the absence of reports over the past 12 years?
Questions like these are best pursued by local bloggers and reporters at college newspapers, who can find out whether their school is aware of foreign-gift-reporting requirements and perhaps obtain an on-the-record statement confirming that no foreign gifts of $250,000 or higher have been received within a given period.
This definitely deserves more follow-up:
As an example of reports that raise intriguing questions worthy of follow-up, let’s look at some gifts from the United Arab Emirates to Harvard University. Let me emphasize again that my comments here do not reflect settled conclusions, but are meant only to suggest lines for further inquiry.
It was widely reported in 2004 that Harvard University had returned a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates. (See here, here, and here.) The gift had originally been earmarked to fund an endowed professorship in Islamic religious studies at Harvard Divinity School, but was held up when students at the Divinity School alleged that the institution making the gift had hosted speakers claiming that the Holocaust was perpetrated by Zionists, and that Israel was behind 9/11.
Reports indicated that Harvard agreed to return the gift in 2004. So it is intriguing that in 2005 we see two $1-million gifts from the UAE to Harvard (without any donor name) and an additional $1.5 million contract between Harvard and the UAE. We then see an extremely large gift of $14,586,957 from an unnamed “non-government” source in the UAE to Harvard University in 2006.
While there may be nothing untoward here at all, further investigation seems appropriate. Were the gift reports of 2005 merely a kind of bookkeeping indication of the gift that passed through and was then eventually returned to the UAE, as promised? Or are we dealing with completely separate and subsequent gifts? A skeptic might wonder whether the gift reportedly returned was somehow quietly re-gifted later on. But of course there may be no connection at all between the gift famously returned to the UAE and the later gifts to Harvard from unnamed donors. In any case, more information would be most welcome.
Now, the National Association of Scholars has launched its own project probing foreign donations:
he NAS believes that timely, thorough, and accurate reporting of foreign gifts facilitates transparency in higher education. Complying with the law by publicly reporting large foreign gifts helps allay undue concerns about foreign influence over American higher education. Reporting foreign gifts also alerts the public to those few cases that do raise legitimate concerns about the role of foreign donors in American higher education. In short, public information on foreign gifts facilitates an important debate about the place of American higher education in the world.
The recent release of the Department of Education’s records on foreign gifts to American institutions of higher education has given rise to concerns that some colleges and universities may not be reporting large foreign gifts in a timely or thorough fashion. In view of these concerns, the NAS has agreed to act as a clearing house for reports that we believe raise legitimate concerns about the foreign gift reporting practices of particular institutions. The purpose of posting such concerns on this site is to encourage timely and accurate reporting of large foreign gifts. The NAS does not endorse, or claim to have reached any final conclusions, about the specific reports posted here. Our purpose is simply to help those who we feel are raising legitimate questions about gift reporting practices find a public forum.
While we do not endorse the reports we post as part of this project, we will sift submissions and decline to post any that are, on their face, simply rumors or ungrounded accusations. The NAS reserves the right to exercise its own judgment about which reports to post. We are looking for reputable reports based on significant evidence.
The NAS encourages colleges and universities to issue public statements about the accuracy and thoroughness of their foreign gift reporting practices. We are eager to post such statements at this site, particularly such statements as are issued in reply to any concerns about gift reporting practices posted here.
* If you know of news reports, stories in college newspapers, or reputable reports by bloggers raising legitimate questions about a given institution’s foreign gift reporting practices, we invite you to e-mail them to nasonweb@nas.org.
* If you know of news stories, or have information about large foreign gifts to a particular institution that are not included in the recently released federal data, you are also invited to send that information to our email.
* Again, the NAS seeks to provide a forum in which legitimate concerns about foreign gift reporting in higher education can be expressed. We are also eager to provide a forum in which colleges and universities can publicly respond to and allay public concerns. As an organization, the NAS does not specifically endorse or draw any final conclusions about the reports from the public, or the statements from institutions of higher education, posted on this site.
This is an excellent project for student journalists and bloggers in college towns to take on. Pay special attention to the Saudi bucks.
Get digging!
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Categories: Education, Saudi Arabia
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mmmmmm. That may explain why Michigan was so quick to put in muslim footbaths.
Inch by inch. The muslims are like the illegals, they are trying to take over our county, get their politicians in high place, make American citizan’s give in to demands of cair and aclu for their rights. I am so glad I don’t have a child in school of college. What they are teaching them, parents probably won’t ever know. Berkley, good example. Just follow the money, all good lib’s will sell our country out in a heartbeat.
L
I’m actually doing a project for my management class where we do a SWOT analysis of our college; I’m in a good position to take on this assignment. (I doubt I’ll find anything suspicious, though; this is a Catholic university.
)
“When we hang the last
capitalistinfidel it will be with the rope he sold us”.Think I heard this one before somewhere…
FUNDING EVIL…..still available
ALMS for JIHAD ….not longer available——-”BURNED” (via treat of lawsuit toward Cambridge U.) by a Saudi billionaire in 2007.
Perhaps you can borrow it from your local library.
Both are good sources for educational information on Islamic $$$$$$$$$$ take over of our system.
Here are few stats to ponder re growing influence of foreign givers.
Total giving from Arab nations during US Presidential terms:
Reagan - $1.25MM
Bush I - $1.47MM
Clinton - $72.9MM
Bush II - $230.4MM
Of the $306.1MM received from Arab countries during this period the University of Arkansas received its only gifts (totaling $18.3MM) in 1995; the only gifts reported for TX schools (A&M and Rice) totaling $4.2MM were received in 2003 and 2007.
Donations from Switzerland unattributed to any specific donor totaled $76.1MM and were concentrated in 3 universities:
Harvard - $45.7MM
Columbia - $12.7MM
Johns Hopkins - $ 5.9MM
A little more transparency would be good regarding these donations.
I’m still waiting for the donor list and gift amounts given for the respective Presidential libraries. From what has been reported the influence peddling doesn’t stop when someone leaves office…
Michelle, you do us all a public service by asking for participation like this. I brought this post to all my nephews attention. As you say, time to dig in.
When one gives millions of dollars, one expects something in return. Its the economics Law of Quid Pro Quo. So what did recent donors to Harvard University expect in return for their millions of dollars? You just might be surprised –– then again –– maybe not. Check this out:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/harvards-segregated-gym/
Our enemy, Saudi Arabia, along with other Gulf States, are waging both a hard and a soft jihad against America, the West, and the world at large. The hard jihad of terror is well known. The Sep 11 attacks were funded mostly by Saudi Arabia and partially by the Gulf States. Virtually every Islamic terror attack has a connection to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia also wages the soft jihad against America, using its money to spread its vile Wahhabism in America through legal means. The Saudi embassy hands out pamphlets to Arab tourists that tells them it is their religious duty to hate America and runs an elementary/high school in the Virginia suburbs of DC that indoctrinates the students to hate and hurt non-Muslims. The Saudis run a program to take over American mosques by staffing them with imams trained in Wahhabi mosques. Virtually every mosque in America is full of Saudi Wahhabi hate literature. Some 80% of the mosques have been radicalized in this manner.
Where there are no mosques, the Saudis build them, disguising the source of funds. The Saudis regard such mosques, often established in unlikely communities, as colonies from which they intend to expand to take over America. It’s an insane view, yet that’s what they’re doing.
The Saudis also gained a monopoly over providing Muslim chaplains for the prison system. These Wahhabi chaplains work on converting their captive audience to their radical Islam. That is why so many criminals, like H. Rap Brown, have jailhouse conversions to Islam which justifies their crimes against infidel America.
The Saudis are also using their petrodollars to gain a beachhead in the universities, establishing Islamic centers purportedly to increase understanding between the Arab and American cultures. In fact, they are centers for Islamist indoctrination. Through the university system, they leverage their position to take advantage of grants by the US government to spread their propaganda in muted form. For example, the federal government funds a Muslim program to introduce Islam to elementary school students by play-acting to be Muslims at school. It’s disguised as a cultural diversity program.
Saudi money is everywhere, promoting Wahhabism and Islamism in many ways. While I have little fear that it will take over America, it seems self-evidently obvious that we should not let our Saudi enemies free run of America. They should be exposed everywhere, confronted, and defeated.
Here’s a novel idea…how about spending those millions on your own people…you know, those that feel so hopeless that they turn to terrorism in frustration?
Or is that all that hopelessness we hear about nothing more than false rationalization to cover up terrorism’s real purpose…killing those with whom you are diametrically opposed?
OK folks we have a problem here … so what do we propose to do about it?
The America Firster in me says we should require State Department approval for any foreign donations to our universities.
As a previous poster mentions, these large donors expect something for their money; it sure looks like implanting Islam.
I believe “D’awa” that is spreading the Islamic faith by any means possible is a religious obligation to Muslims who are in a position to do so.
So here we are at one end of the spectrum where there is an enormous slush fund of Islamic petrodollars available for “D’awa” via lawful means … and other slush funds to buy arms for Jihad fighters.
Doesn’t look good folks!
how many of them originate from the Middle east?
Another excellent report by Stanley Kurtz is the one he did last year about how Saudi Arabia is influencing what is taught in our K-12 public schools. He linked to it in his latest article yet I add it here as well for your convienence.
Do we know of any reciprocity? i.e. Does the US have donors to create an ‘Understanding Western Cultures Superiority Over the Hordes of Idiots in the Middle East” in some of the Universities in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Dubai?
Would such donations, much less departments, be allowed by them? Yeah. Right. Pigs fly high over the Saudi capitol.
#3 OneofThem . . .”I doubt I’ll find anything suspicious, though; this is a Catholic university.”
Don’t be so sure . . .Tariq Ramadan and Notre Dame
follow up:
Visa revoked
Muslim Scholar gives up post
Hugh Fitzgerald: A Tribute to Tariq Ramadan
#3 OneofThem . . .
James V. Schall and others need to rescue the name “Georgetown” and the prestige which accrues to it, from being exploited by John Esposito, who directly or indirectly, is clearly a reciipient of Arab funds, and who, furthermore, has a long history of denying, omitting, explaining away, central elements in Islam, contained in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira. This has to be brought to the attention of everyone at Georgetown, and everyone who thinks well, or would like to think well, of Georgetown.
Don’t ya know… we’re all global citizens now and our schools are now “global education centers.” Too bad that even muslim extremists (and their soverign counterparts) can buy influence at the most prestigious of institutions like University of Michigan or Harvard. Is this what alumni of these two schools really want?