University of Michigan faces federal investigation after arrest of 2 Chinese scientists
This April 7, 2017 file photo, shows Burton Tower on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Hunter Dyke/Ann Arbor News via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The University of Michigan is under federal scrutiny after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the United States.
The Education Department on Tuesday opened an investigation into the university’s foreign funding, citing the pair of cases that were announced days apart in June. It said the “highly disturbing criminal charges” raise concerns about Michigan’s vulnerability to national security threats from China.
“Despite the University of Michigan’s history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM’s research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage,” said Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel of the department.
President Donald Trump has made it a priority to increase transparency around foreign gifts and contracts to U.S. universities, especially those tied to China. Similar investigations have been opened at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.
It joins efforts from Republicans in Congress who have urged universities to cut research ties with China, saying China exploits the relationships to steal technology. Michigan ended a partnership with a university in Shanghai in January amid pressure from House Republicans who called it a security risk.
The new investigation demands financial records from Michigan, along with information about research collaborations with institutions outside the U.S. The Education Department accuses Michigan of being “incomplete, inaccurate and untimely” in its public disclosures around funding from foreign sources.
In a statement, UM spokesperson Colleen Mastony said the university will cooperate with federal investigators and takes its responsibility to comply with the law “extremely seriously.”
“We strongly condemn any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission,” Mastony wrote.
Federal authorities brought charges in June against a Chinese scientist and his girlfriend — who worked at a lab at the University of Michigan — after the FBI said it halted their effort to bring a toxic fungus into the United States.
Days later, authorities arrested a Chinese scientist who was arriving in the U.S. and has been accused of shipping biological material to a laboratory at the University of Michigan.
In June, the university announced a review of protocols related to research security.
In a letter to the university, however, the Education Department said some school officials have downplayed the vulnerability of research collaborations with Chinese institutions. It singles out Ann Chih Lin, director of the university’s Center for Chinese Studies, who has publicly said the threat of technology theft from China is overstated.
“Lin’s apparent indifference to the national security concerns of the largest single source of funding for UM’s annual research expenditures — the American taxpayer — is particularly unsettling,” Education Department officials wrote.
Federal law requires universities to report all gifts and contracts from foreign sources totaling $250,000 or more. The law went mostly unenforced until Trump’s first term, when the Education Department opened a dozen inquiries into universities accused of underreporting foreign money. The Biden administration closed most of those cases, but the effort has recently been renewed.
Many U.S. universities acknowledge a need to improve research security but caution against treating Chinese scholars with hostility and suspicion, saying only small numbers have been involved in espionage.
Last year, House Republicans issued a report finding that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding had gone toward research that ultimately boosted Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology and nuclear weapons.
China is the second-largest country of origin for foreign students in the U.S., behind only India. In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States.
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