FIRST ON FOX: Oklahoma GOP Sen. James Lankford is introducing a bill to prevent Department of Education K-12 funds from going to universities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained Lankford's new Countering Adversarial and Malicious Partnerships at Universities and Schools (CAMPUS) Act, which is designed to "prohibit the use of funds for universities that provide support to the People's Liberation Army (PLA)."
Lankford introduced the bill on Tuesday as the Senate heads back into session following the August recess.
UNIVERSITIES, NON-PROFITS FORCED TO DIVEST FROM CHINA OR LOSE TAX-EXEMPT UNDER NEW GOP BILL
"The Communist Chinese Party is working to undermine and challenge the U.S. — not just internationally, but on our own soil," Lankford told Fox News Digital. "They are creeping into our education system at the university and K-12 level to destabilize, disinform, hack, steal and propagandize."
"We have already identified Confucius Institutes as dangerous connection points between U.S. universities and Beijing," the Oklahoma senator continued. "The CCP has used these connections to steal American innovation and exert political influence over students, faculty, and their families."
"But they’re finding new ways to engage malignly with our schools, from K-12 to universities and colleges who are often connected to the U.S. government through contracts. My bill makes sure we get the Communist Chinese Party out of our classrooms and keeps them away from sensitive national security information."
Under the bill, the director of national intelligence, "in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall identify each institution of higher education domiciled in the People's Republic of China that provides support" to the PLA, including schools "involved in the implementation of the Military-Civil Fusion strategy" spearheaded by the CCP.
The director of national intelligence and defense secretary would be required under the bill to "submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a list of each entity identified" under the provision within 180 days after the bill's enactment.
"None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Education for K-12 education by may be provided to an elementary [or] secondary school that maintains a contract with an entity domiciled in the People's Republic of China," the bill reads.
"None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for the Department of Defense for research, development, testing, and evaluation may be provided to an entity that maintains a contract with an insitution identified under section 2," the bill also reads.
Lankford's bill prevents the director of defense counterintelligence from determining "that a facility of an entity is eligible to host or store a classified information unless the entity certifies" to the director that it "does not have an active research partnership with an institution" listed under the bill.
Additionally, the bill allows the secretary of state to "deny the application for a visa for a nonimmigrant" involved in the CCP's Military-Civil Fusion agenda.
Lankford's bill comes as Congress cracks down on the CCP's influence in American education.
House China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher is rolling out a bill that would force non-profits, university endowments, public pension plans and other tax-exempt entities to divest from Chinese companies or lose their tax-exempt status.
Gallagher will introduce his bill, called the "DITCH Act," on Tuesday. A companion version of the bill is expected to be introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in the Senate when it returns from the August break.
"American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize investments that benefit the Chinese Communist Party," said Gallagher, R-Wis. "Universities, non-profits, public pension funds, and other institutions that want preferential tax treatment must choose: are they committed to their professed values or to financing a genocidal communist regime?"
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed reporting.
