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.
