{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://baumgartner.house.gov/media/press-releases/baumgartner-deterrent-act-addresses-foreign-interference-higher-education", "Baumgartner: DETERRENT Act addresses foreign interference in higher education", "2025-07-21", "2025", "2025-07", "Republican", "House", "WA", "Michael Baumgartner", "B001322", "baumgartner.house.gov", "baumgartner", "https://baumgartner.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON- Congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA-05), Vice Chair of the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education, penned an op-ed in The Hill calling for the U.S. Senate to act on his DETERRENT Act to end malign foreign influence in our education system and put American interests first.\n\nThis comes after the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing titled \u201cAntisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology,\u201d where UC-Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons failed to commit to full transparency on foreign funding.\n\nBaumgartner writes: \u201cEven more alarming, he admitted that hostile foreign actors regularly approach the university but claimed he was \u201cnot in a position\u201d to name a single example. The American people deserve to know who is bankrolling our public universities. If UC Berkeley won\u2019t come clean, it raises a serious question: What are universities hiding \u2014 and why?\u201d\n\nBaumgartner discusses how this is not just an academic issue, it is also a direct threat to our national security. He cites the Department of Education\u2019s ongoing investigation into the University of Michigan\u2019s discrepancies in their financial disclosures.\n\nBaumgartner writes: \u201cIn January, the University of Michigan cut ties with a Chinese university over concerns that its funding could be linked to Beijing\u2019s military-industrial complex. On Tuesday, the Department of Education opened an investigation into the university to assess its compliance with federal law and the accuracy of its foreign funding disclosures.\n\nHe continues: While I welcome the University of Michigan\u2019s decision to stop the flow of money from the Chinese Communist Party, serious questions remain. Why were tens of millions in foreign funding reported late \u2014 and in some cases, misclassified as coming from \u201cnongovernmental entities\u201d when the money appears to be directly tied to foreign governments? What are they hiding?\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T14:40:33Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://baumgartner.house.gov/media/press-releases/baumgartner-deterrent-act-addresses-foreign-interference-higher-education"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.925285741686821, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}