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October 03, 2026

Circuit Judge Blocks Sunshine Disclosure

Timothy Birdnow

An Obama judge has blocked the Trump Administration from releasing the names of foreign donors to major American universities.

From Gateway Pundit:

DC US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Obama appointee who presided over the federal election case against President Trump, issued a temporary restraining order barring the Department of Education from releasing a list of foreign donors tied to as much as $5.2 billion in gifts and contracts reported by the schools since 2020.

The Department of Education announced in February that universities disclosed more than $5.2 billion in reportable foreign gifts and contracts during 2025 alone, involving more than 8,300 transactions. The agency said universities have reported a cumulative $67.6 billion in foreign funding since Section 117 was added to federal law in 1986.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act already requires schools that take federal money to report foreign gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more.

So, disclosure being federal law anyway, how could this woman object?

According to the New York Post, Chutkan ruled that disclosure of the information could "constitute irreparable harm.”

In her five-page order in Association of American Universities v. U.S. Department of Education, Chutkan wrote that the department "threatens to imminently publish the names of donors who have hitherto remained anonymous for every internet user to see in posterity.”

She added: "Once published, the information will likely never escape the public eye.” The Obama judge also fretted that naming the donors "may produce downstream harms to the safety of donors who live in politically repressive countries.”

The order stays in place for 28 days while she weighs a longer injunction. Reuters reported the suit was filed Thursday by the Association of American Universities, the trade group for 69 research universities, including Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yal

Not escaping the public eye is the whole point of disclosure laws. The public has a right to know who is financing research and the education of their kids.

Harvard and these others are taking money and then conducting research which is often at the service of these donors. Don't we need to know if the Chinese, or Russian oligarchs, are funding research that is driving public policy?

If a university does research on, say, global warming at the behest of, say, the Russians who promote it to eliminate the competition for oil isn't the public interest served by knowing they are funding it?

There is no good reason for university donations to be kept private.

The Left used to scream about the "public's right to know" and journalists used to "speak truth to power" and yet they think this shouldn't be the case now. Why do you suppose that is?

Obviously its because they now have something to hide. How much Chinese money is going to our universities these days? How much money from George Soros and his ilk?

Yet this woman says it will cause "irreparable harm".

You know why she just issued a temporary injunction. She needs time to come up with some sort of actual legal argument. Also, she does not want this released before the midterms lest it hurt the Democrats.

Liberals can never be divorced from politics - it's their sole purpose in existing. It makes me think of Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof, the communist who wants to marry Tevvye's daughter. When he proposes he says he wants to ask her a political question. She asks how that could be political and he answers "everything's political". That's how the Left thinks; it is their God.

The Trump Administration should release the name anyway and say "I didn't release it in your jurisdiction and you have no authority outside of that per the U.S. Supreme Court".

We are going to have to fight them for every inch of ground.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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