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The American Council on Education and 29 other higher education organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education raising concerns about a new proposed form for collecting information about gifts and contracts from foreign sources. Disclosure of foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more is required under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, and the department published notice in September of a new proposed form to collect information to this effect.
The higher education groups argue that the scope of the proposed information collection goes beyond the scope of the law. “First, aspects of the proposed information collection would go far beyond the plain language of Sec. 117, clearly directing institutions to make disclosures -- with no statutory basis -- of a vastly expanded amount of information and documents,” the groups wrote. “Second, the manner in which other aspects of the proposed information collection is organized and written makes the information collection subject to differing reasonable interpretations, with some of those interpretations also well beyond what Sec. 117 requires.”
Among the specific issues addressed in the 16-page letter, the groups argue that a proposed requirement that institutions provide the government with a "true copy" of gift agreements and contracts would risk the disclosure of intellectual property and proprietary information. The groups also argue that a proposed requirement that individual foreign donors be identified with names and addresses raises privacy concerns.
