The Pentagon ordered 30 American universities in August to review and cut ties with Chinese entities or risk losing federal research funding, but documents show some schools pushed back, saying their partnerships posed no threat to sensitive research.
A high-level Defense Department official sent a letter to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale this summer, alleging the school had connections to China that potentially put US research at risk of being stolen. The letter asked the school to audit its relationships with nine Chinese entities.
Southern Illinois responded that it saw no need to end the relationships because there was no ongoing work with any of the organizations. The school later terminated an agreement with Shenyang Aerospace University at the Pentagon’s insistence after the entity was added to a government blacklist.
The Pushback
The Defense Department declared victory this week, saying all 30 schools had ended or “fully mitigated” the foreign relationships and taken “more than 80 termination-related actions”.
But a review of documents from 17 of the schools found that most told the Pentagon they had already decided to end the relationships before receiving the letters — or that the connections didn’t involve sensitive technology. Some partnerships focused on undergraduate study-abroad programs or hospitality courses, not work in research labs with military contracts.
Six of the 17 schools indicated they planned to maintain at least some ties to Chinese schools.
The Holdouts
Drake University in Iowa told its campus community that the government raised concerns about its undergraduate joint degree program with Qingdao University in China. Drake’s president said the school has no active Defense Department contracts, complies with federal research-security guidelines, and noted that Qingdao University is not on the government’s list.
“We do not meet any of the criteria in the letter or the press release that would be cause for concern,” Drake President Marty Martin said
By contrast, seven schools were praised by the Pentagon for going “above and beyond” by quickly terminating relationships: Oklahoma State, Penn State, UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of South Carolina, USC, UT Austin, and Virginia Tech. However, several of those schools said the partnerships did not involve any restricted research.
The Blacklist
The directive focused on entities on the Section 1286 blacklist, a roster of 130 foreign organizations the government identified as national security concerns. Most are from China, with others in Russia and Iran.
The Pentagon said institutions that fail to meet research security standards are “on notice” that taxpayer dollars will not support partnerships that put American technological advantage at risk.
The Bottom Line
The Pentagon ordered 30 universities to cut ties with Chinese entities or risk losing federal funding. While the Defense Department says all 30 complied, documents show several schools pushed back, arguing their partnerships involved no sensitive research. Some planned to maintain ties. The episode highlights the tension between national security concerns and academic independence as the Trump administration escalates its crackdown on US-China research collaborations.
My Opinion
The Pentagon’s letter was not an invitation to a conversation. It was an order dressed up as a request. Thirty universities were told to audit their relationships with Chinese entities or risk losing federal research funding.
But here is what the documents reveal: most of the schools had already ended the relationships before the letters arrived. Some had no active partnerships at all. Others were running undergraduate study-abroad programs, not classified research. Drake University told the Pentagon it had no Defense Department contracts and was fully compliant with federal guidelines. The response was essentially: we are not the problem you are looking for.
The Pentagon declared victory anyway. All 30 schools complied, it said. More than 80 termination-related actions. But compliance is not the same as agreement. Several schools pushed back. Some said they planned to keep their ties. The government ignored them.
This is what happens when national security becomes a blunt instrument. The Pentagon is right to protect sensitive research. But treating every university partnership with China as a potential espionage threat is not security. It’s paranoia and it will cost American universities the global collaborations that have made them the best in the world.
