The Pentagon said Monday that its effort to push American universities away from foreign entities considered potential security threats had succeeded. All 30 institutions ordered to examine their overseas relationships reported that the identified concerns had been addressed.

In August, the War Department directed 30 private and state universities to review their connections with foreign institutions listed under Section 1286 of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The order placed federal research relationships under fresh scrutiny.

Section 1286 seeks to prevent nations such as China and Russia from gaining access to American research and technology. Universities that failed to comply with the War Department’s order faced the possible loss of federal research funding.

The funding threat gave the review real consequences for institutions benefiting from federal support. Rather than risk that cutoff, the universities conducted audits and terminated relationships that raised concerns under the federal standard.

“All 30 universities have fully mitigated identified relationships with foreign entities of concern,” the War Department announced Monday. It added, “Overall, the audits resulted in more than 80 termination-related actions across the 30 universities.”

The Pentagon did not publicly identify all 30 universities involved in the review. It did, however, recognize seven institutions for going “above and beyond” and “quickly terminating problematic relationships” rather than merely satisfying the minimum requirements.

Those seven were Oklahoma State University, The Pennsylvania State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of South Carolina. The University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Tech also received recognition.

Joseph Jewell, assistant secretary of defense for science and technology, praised the seven institutions for establishing what he described as a standard for domestic research security. His statement emphasized their response to potential foreign exploitation of laboratories, faculty and intellectual property.

“These academic institutions that went above and beyond deserve immense credit for setting the benchmark in domestic research security,” Jewell said. “Rather than settling for minimum compliance, these institutions took bold, self-initiated steps to protect their labs, faculty, and intellectual property from foreign exploitation.”

The universities were not limited to examining partnerships with institutions named under the 2019 law. The Pentagon also instructed them to review connections with “organizations associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes” that provide instruction in Chinese language and culture.

The U.S. government fears that those organizations spread Chinese government propaganda on American college campuses. That concern placed the programs alongside the other foreign relationships subjected to the August review.

The August action followed the July release of the DoW’s fiscal 2025 update identifying “foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities.” That list named 130 academic and research institutions located in China, Russia and Iran.

“These institutions have been confirmed to engage in activities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated,” the Pentagon said. The warning focused directly on the security of research and development supported by American taxpayers.

American colleges also conducted “precautionary terminations involving entities not specifically identified on the list,” according to the Pentagon. Those additional actions expanded the severed relationships beyond the foreign entities formally designated in the government review.

The federal government has also increased scrutiny of military and civilian research collaboration with China. In August, Ohio State University agreed to a $2.1 million settlement over civil allegations that it failed to disclose employee affiliations with Chinese institutions involving NASA and National Science Foundation projects.

Similar scrutiny has emerged outside the United States. Last month, the United Kingdom ordered British universities to stop working with the China General Technology Research Institute, which British security services believe serves as a front for Chinese espionage, while Beijing denied those allegations.