The Justice Department is investigating whether Harvard University let foreign donors, including wealthy backers in China, dictate financial aid terms that pushed American students to the back of the line.
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The department announced that its Civil Rights Division is examining whether Harvard’s disclosures of foreign gifts point to donor-imposed, nationality-based restrictions on financial aid, a practice that could run afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That law bars institutions receiving federal money from discriminating on the basis of national origin.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon made clear the administration will not tolerate elite universities using taxpayer support as cover while quietly funneling foreign cash into aid programs that leave American students out in the cold.
“Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits,” Dhillon said in a statement.
“Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens, doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it,” she continued.
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Investigators say some China-based donors instructed Harvard to steer their contributions toward aid programs benefiting students from specific countries, an arrangement the department says could leave American students, along with students of other nationalities, at a disadvantage. The DOJ has not named the donors or scholarships under scrutiny and cautioned that no conclusions have been reached.
Harvard, for its part, insisted it is playing by the rules.
“Harvard follows the law for required reporting of donations and, consistent with our legal obligations under Title VI, does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid,” the university said in a statement.
Federal law requires colleges to disclose foreign gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more. A Civil Rights Division audit of those filings found Harvard reported nearly $4.5 billion in foreign funding, the most of any American university, with more than $630 million coming from China alone, by far its largest foreign benefactor.
While federal financial aid is generally reserved for American students, Harvard also draws on private scholarship funds to support students from abroad, some of which have been earmarked for specific nationalities. In 2014, for example, SOHO China co-founders Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin gave Harvard $15 million to benefit Chinese students. It is not clear whether that gift is part of the current review.
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