Foreign Influence Transparency Act

Foreign Influence Transparency Act

This bill addresses foreign influence in higher education and in certain other academic, religious, and artistic pursuits.

Current law exempts from foreign agent registration requirements a person engaging in activities in furtherance of religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or of the fine arts. The bill specifies that this exemption applies only if those activities do not promote the political agenda of a foreign government.

Under current law, an institution of higher education (IHE) must disclose to the Department of Education (ED) a gift or contract that is from a foreign source and is valued at $250,000 or more, considered alone or in combination with all other gifts from or contracts with the foreign source within a calendar year. The bill lowers this disclosure threshold to $50,000. The bill also requires the IHE to include in its disclosure report the contents of any such contract and make the contents available for public inspection and copying.

Additionally, an IHE that enters into an agreement with a Confucius Institute (i.e., a cultural institute directly or indirectly funded by the Chinese government) must immediately make available the full text of the agreement to the public, ED, and Congress.

Finally, the bill prohibits an IHE that does not comply with these disclosure requirements from enrolling foreign students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.