The U.S. Justice Department has opened a civil rights compliance review into Harvard University over financial aid programs supported by China-based funding sources.
The department announced Monday that investigators will examine whether restrictions attached to the foreign funding cause Harvard to discriminate against American students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in the department’s announcement.
Dhillon alleged that federally funded universities cannot accept foreign money and then use it to provide financial assistance that “deliberately excludes American citizens.”
The investigation has not produced a finding that Harvard violated federal law, and the Civil Rights Division said it had reached no conclusions about the allegations.
According to the Justice Department, Harvard has disclosed nearly $4.5 billion in foreign gifts and contracts under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. The department said more than $630 million came from sources based in China, making China the university’s largest reported source of foreign funding.
Federal law requires colleges and universities to report foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more. Reporting or accepting foreign funding is not itself illegal.
The Civil Rights Division said its review of Harvard’s disclosures identified funding agreements directing the university to establish or support financial aid programs “with preference given to students from particular countries.”
Investigators will examine whether Harvard followed those restrictions by awarding aid based on students’ national origins and whether doing so disadvantaged students of other national origins, including Americans.
The department’s announcement referred both to American citizenship and national origin, although those are legally distinct classifications. Title VI prohibits federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin; it does not expressly list citizenship as a protected category. Whether the programs violate Title VI will therefore depend on their specific eligibility requirements, operation and relationship to national origin.
The Justice Department did not identify the individual financial aid programs involved, disclose their eligibility language or state how many students received assistance through them. The announcement also did not include a response from Harvard.
Harvard’s foreign-funding disclosures are publicly available through a database maintained by the U.S. Department of Education.
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