VOA慢速英语:美国对哈佛和耶鲁大学的外国资金进行调查

The United States Department of Education has launched an investigation into Harvard University and Yale University. Earlier this month, the agency announced the schools had failed to report hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign gifts and contracts.

Yale University is in New Haven, Connecticut. It may not have reported at least $375 million in foreign money over the last four years, officials said in a statement. They are also concerned that Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, may not have fully met reporting requirements.

"This is about transparency," U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a statement. "If colleges and universities are accepting foreign money and gifts, their students, donors, and taxpayers deserve to know how much and from whom."

Federal law requires most colleges and universities to report gifts from and contracts with foreign sources twice a year, if the amount is more than $250,000.

Reed Rubinstein is the head of the Education Department's legal team. He recently sent a letter to Yale President Peter Salovey. The letter accused the university of not reporting "a single foreign source gift or contract" from 2014 to 2017. Yet the school operates in many countries.

Reed Rubinstein sent a similar letter to Harvard President Lawrence Bacow. Rubinstein said the Education Department knew "of information suggesting Harvard University lacks appropriate institutional controls."

Lieber was arrested on January 28 and released early this month on a $1 million bond.

The investigation of Yale and Harvard is part of a larger examination by the Department of Education. The agency says since July its enforcement efforts have led to the reporting of nearly $6.5 billion in formerly undisclosed foreign money. Much of that money came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

"This sum may be significantly underestimated," the education department said.

Karen Peart is a spokeswoman for Yale University. She confirmed the school had received a request from the department for records of some foreign gifts and contracts under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965.

"We are reviewing the request and preparing to respond to it," Peart told reporters.

Harvard spokesman Jonathan Swain made a similar confirmation. He said that the school had received a "Notice of Investigation" from the agency and was also preparing an answer.

Last year, the department also sent letters to several other schools. They included Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland. Department officials wrote that they were seeking records dating back as far as nine years ago. Their requests included records of agreements with groups and governments in countries like Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

A year ago, a U.S. Senate committee on investigations described foreign spending on U.S. schools as "a black hole." It revealed that fewer than 3 percent of 3,700 higher education institutions that received foreign money reported receiving gifts or contracts over $250,000.

But some experts argue blame for this "black hole" should not fall on colleges and universities alone. In July, the American Council on Education, or ACE, which represents hundreds of colleges and universities, wrote a letter to the Education Department. ACE's senior vice president for government relations, Terry W. Hartle, pointed out the rules governing these gifts are over 30 years old. He added that the department has never made an effort to make the rules clearer.

"It is...unfair to enforce requirements that do not exist in writing," Hartle wrote.

I'm -Dorothy Gundy.
And I'm Pete Musto.

Pete Musto adapted this story for VOA Learning English using materials from Reuters, the New York Times and NPR. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on www.hxen.net .