We are now witnessing the latest Joe/Hunter Biden scandal. This one involves the recent discovery of classified documents at the president's home in Delaware as well as his office in the Penn-Biden Center in Washington DC. These documents were transferred from Biden's office as vice president when he left office as VP under the Obama administration. Biden has been in possession of these documents for approximately 6 years now.
But what about this Penn-Biden Center, which was set up in 2018 after Joe Biden left the vice presidency? It is now reported that this center has received millions of dollars from China.
The center is operated under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania though it is located in Washington DC as opposed to the university campus in Philadelphia. This week, the university has made the following statement in the wake of an inquiry from the House of Representatives, now under majority Republican control. The statement is reported this week in the university campus newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian.
"The University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017 there have been three unsolicited gifts, from two donors, which combined [to a total of] $1,100. Both donors are Americans. One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds," the spokesperson wrote. "Any foreign gifts received by the university are all properly reported to the U.S. Department of Education as required by Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts."
No doubt we will be learning more about the Penn-Biden Center in the coming weeks and months. There is lots of speculation about what the documents may contain and whether they have anything to do with Hunter Biden and his business dealings with China. This week it is being reported by Fox News that a former office staffer of then-Vice President Biden, who was reportedly recommended for the position by Hunter Biden, has come forward and expressed concern that she may have been one of those who were tasked with transferring documents from the vice president's office. All this is yet to be sorted out.
But while we await the ultimate findings of this investigation, I would like to draw attention to a related problem, which is the influence of foreign money in our universities. After my retirement from DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), I spent two decades teaching part-time at three colleges and universities, including 18 years at the University of California at Irvine.
We are learning more and more these days about the efforts of the Chinese government to make inroads in our universities, including through the use of financial donations. That is one problem that deserves our attention. The Chinese government is not doing this purely for altruistic reasons in the interest of the pursuit of knowledge, etc. They are obviously trying to gain influence. What kind of influence can a country buy from a university? Of course, there are legitimate reasons, such as joint ventures between friendly academic entities, such as between universities, academies of science, and NGOs. In the case of China, the main goal is to steal American technology, much of which is developed within academia. This is achieved through the use of students and researchers sent to study and /or work on university campuses.
Aside from China, there are other countries donating to American universities for questionable motives. I am thinking primarily here of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Both of these countries have donated tens of millions of dollars to US universities. In many cases, this money has been used to establish Middle East Studies departments. It goes without saying that aside from their pan-Arab, pro-Islam outlook, Middle East studies centers in US universities are uniformly hostile to Israel. They bear partial responsibility for much of the anti-Israel agitation on campuses and the resultant anti-Semitism directed at Jewish students, especially if they defend the Jewish state. Of course, the spokespeople for these centers ritually maintain that they are not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist.
Taking one such center as an example, look at Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Sounds harmless enough. In 2005, the above Saudi prince, for whom the center is named, donated 20 million dollars to Georgetown for the center. This was the same individual who had offered 10 million dollars to the city of New York to help rebuild after 9-11, but whose offer was rejected by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani because the prince wanted the US to change his stance in regard to the Middle East and the Israel / Palestinian conflict. Here is what the Investigative Project on Terrorism has to say about the center. Georgetown University even has a campus located in Qatar. As with the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, their focus is in the field of foreign service.
It should also be known that the center's most prominent professor, aside from activist professor John Esposito, is Jonathan Brown, a convert to Islam who happens to be the son-in-law of Sami al-Arian, the disgraced former professor at the University of South Florida. Al-Arian was charged with financially assisting Middle East terror groups, and after a long judicial process, was finally deported to Turkey. Brown himself gained notoriety a few years ago when he implied that slavery practiced by Muslims was justified.
On a more general note, our universities today are multi-billion dollar enterprises as anyone paying for a college tuition today is well aware. Wealthy donors and alumni pay big bucks just to get their name on a university building or library. When so much money starts to influence what our children are taught about controversial or sensitive topics (like the Israel-Palestinian conflict, for example), truth sometimes is sacrificed. When that kind of financial influence is coming from overseas, especially countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, it is even more alarming.
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