University of Maryland to End Beijing-Funded Program That Chills Campus Speech, Academic Freedom

University of Maryland to End Beijing-Funded Program That Chills Campus Speech, Academic Freedom
University of Maryland campus in College Park, Md. W. Scott McGill/Shutterstock
Bill Pan
Updated:

The University of Maryland (UMD) recently announced it would close its Confucius Institute (CI), joining the long and growing list of American universities that sever their ties with the much-criticized Chinese government-funded education program around the globe.

In a campus-wide email, UMD President Wallace Loh wrote that it was no longer possible for the school’s Confucius Institute to continue to operate after the 2019-2020 school year, citing a federal funding bill that essentially made American universities choose between continuing their CIs or accepting money from the U.S. Department of Defense.