Press Releases

Today, Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) spoke on the House Floor in opposition to Rep. Andy Levin’s (D-MI) amendment, which risks putting the personal information of every American college student in the hands of Russia and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).



Republican Leader Foxx's Remarks:

“Members on both sides of the aisle want more transparency and accountability in postsecondary education, but that is not what this amendment accomplishes.
 
“This amendment is a trojan horse for more federal control through colleges and universities.
 
“I believe that many of my colleagues who support this amendment are not completely informed or have thought through the implications of some of its provisions.
 
“This amendment would direct the federal government to create a data system that tracks every college student in America through their adult lives without their consent and without giving them the ability to opt-out.
 
“This sounds more like a scheme the Chinese Communist Party would manufacture than a bipartisan amendment to a bill meant to combat Chinese influence.  
 
“Don’t be fooled. This amendment might use words like 'security,' but in reality it puts the privacy of Americans at risk. Some of these federal agencies have already been hacked by Russian intelligence and fraudsters, who’s to say it won’t happen again?
 
“I don’t trust foxes in my hen house, and I sure don’t trust Washington bureaucrats with a database of the personal and private information of my children and grandchildren or yours.
 
“And what will the Biden administration do with the tax records, social security information, and the private data of Americans? The answer is simple, exert more control.
 
“This amendment isn’t about transparency or accountability, but about giving Washington bureaucrats the ability to choose winners and losers among institutions of postsecondary education.
 
“For example, the Pell grant provisions herd Americans looking for alternative career pathways into the same colleges and universities that failed them in the first place while blocking them from pursuing programs offered by career-focused schools simply based on their tax status – even if these institutions can meet the eleven pages of arbitrary and prescriptive guardrails the amendment puts in place.
 
“This amendment does nothing to improve our broken system of postsecondary education. Instead, it exacerbates our skills gap and labor shortage and forces Americans to concede their privacy to an administration that looks more and more like the authoritarian regime we are supposedly trying to combat.”

Watch the full video here.

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