September 11, 2026 | WSJ Letter to the Editor
Higher Ed Tries to Dodge Donor Transparency
The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who funds universities—and the law doesn’t mandate secrecy.
September 11, 2026 | WSJ Letter to the Editor
Higher Ed Tries to Dodge Donor Transparency
The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who funds universities—and the law doesn’t mandate secrecy.
Excerpt
In his letter “The Debate Over Foreign Money in Higher Ed” (Sept. 8), Ted Mitchell seeks to turn statutory silence into a secrecy mandate. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act doesn’t expressly require publication of every foreign donor’s name. But it nowhere requires those names to remain private either. The absence of one requirement can’t reasonably be read as Congress imposing the opposite.
Mr. Mitchell also invokes the Supreme Court’s decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport (2026), saying it found that a New Jersey nonprofit didn’t have to disclose donor names. But the court held only that the nonprofit had standing to challenge the state’s subpoena and declined to decide whether the disclosure demand was constitutional. A $250,000 foreign transaction with a federally funded university is hardly equivalent to compelled disclosure of a nonprofit’s supporter list.
Craig Singleton is senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.