State Rep. Will Bruck (R-Erie) introduced legislation on Thursday to create the Foreign Influence of State Institutions of Higher Education Act, which would prohibit Michigan’s colleges and universities from entering into constraining agreements with foreign nations of concern. In addition to banning higher education grants or agreements conditioned upon constraints to a school’s freedom to contract or decide on curriculum content, Bruck’s House Bill 4239 requires public colleges and universities to disclose the details of all gifts or grants received from a foreign source to their governing boards. The list of foreign countries of concern includes the following:

• The People’s Republic of China
• The Russian Federation
• The Islamic Republic of Iran
• The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
• The Republic of Cuba
• The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
• The Syrian Arab Republic

“Our foreign adversaries, especially the Chinese Communist Party, have ramped up their efforts to increase their influence and undermine patriotic values in our country,” Bruck said. “Nowhere is that more apparent than in higher education, which has been invaded by China’s Confucius Institutes or their equivalents. A wealth of publicly available statements, manifestos, and other information from the CCP shows their clear goal of increasing their regime’s influence on Americans and discouraging young students’ loyalty to their own country. We need to put an end to that wherever it is happening in Michigan. It is time for us to remove the welcome mat that hostile foreign actors have exploited for so long to further their intrusion in our state.”

Although all of Michigan’s Confucius Institutes have closed in name, many still exist in a different form, either through the Great Lakes Chinese Consortium or with the university maintaining a financial partnership with their Hanban partner. House Bill 4239 is a part of a larger bill package similar to a set of policy proposals that were also introduced last term, when Bruck alongside State Rep. Luke Meerman spearheaded the effort to bring awareness to the issue of subnational foreign influence.

As the Chair and Vice Chair respectively of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Foreign Influence this term, Bruck and Meerman are leading the effort in the Michigan Legislature to ensure foreign adversaries are no longer welcomed to operate within the state’s borders. Their new legislative package includes bills that prohibit certain foreign applications on government-issued devices, government use of certain foreign-manufactured technology, and the storage of health data outside the U.S. These new policies would also ban foreign entities of concern from signing agreements with public officials and owning property on farmland or near military installations.

“As long as these adversarial foreign actors continue to operate in Michigan, our state government is complicit in our homeland security’s impairment and the promotion of an anti-American agenda with taxpayer dollars,” Bruck said. “Our bill package marks a necessary step towards ending China’s malicious schemes in our state.”