Greenville Reporter

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. (NC-03), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, has introduced the Protecting Endowments from Our Adversaries Act (PEOAA). The measure aims at pressuring large university endowments to purge their investment portfolios of Chinese entities deemed a threat to U.S. national security. The bill imposes a 50% excise tax on such investments when acquired, and a 100% tax on gains realized from such investments. It only applies to private colleges and universities with endowments worth more than $1 billion, of which there are approximately 80 in the United States. Upon introduction, he released the following statement:

"Whether we realize it or not, we are at war with China. They have an avowed policy for world domination. We should not be feeding their machine, so it’s imperative that these billion-dollar, tax-advantaged university endowments divest from companies that are detrimental to the safety and security of the United States.

"Schools may argue that these investments are 'not against the law.' However, many of them have a record of divesting from companies for a variety of reasons, including on the basis of Environmental Social Governance (ESG) causes. For security reasons, it is only right that we take steps to decouple."

Original cosponsors include: Rep. Adrian Smith (NE-03), Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21), Rep. Neal Dunn, M.D. (FL-02), Rep. Lloyd Smucker (PA-11), Rep. Scott Franklin (FL-18), Rep. Tim Burchett (TN-02), and Rep. Bill Huizenga (MI-04).

BACKGROUND

This legislation comes after Rep. Murphy sent a letter in March this year to the University of Pennsylvania, and a June 2022 letter to the 15 private colleges and universities with the largest endowments in the United States urging them to divest from dangerous Chinese entities. Read more about previous efforts HERE.

University endowments have a history of links to companies implicated in human rights abuses in China. BuzzFeed reported in 2019 that MIT, Duke, and Princeton invested endowment funds in a company linked to human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

In addition to the 15 aforementioned private schools which received the initial letter, Rep. Murphy also sent a letter to Davidson College and Wake Forest University – both of which would be subject to his PEOAA legislation with endowments over $1 billion.

Rep. Murphy wrote an op-ed earlier this year on this issue, which you can read HERE.

Original source can be found here.