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>>>>>>>>> A university employee requested that Hu remove the letter from the application because it would violate an assurance document the university was subm

>>>>>>>>> A university employee requested that Hu remove the letter from the application because it would violate an assurance document the university was submitting stating that the proposal had no restricted ties to China, the court documents say. A 2011 US law prohibits NASA from funding collaborations with China or Chinese businesses. <<<<<<<<< So this is fraud ? What's the problem?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The problem as I see it is that people who screech about how "just following orders isn't a defense" when people they don't sympathize with violate this or that regulatory compliance statute without harming anyone are acting as though it's a valid defense when it's someone they sympathize with. This behavior is made doubly odious because a large subset of these same people are often in favor of strict enforcement of somewhat arbitrary rules (like a disclosure requirement on an application) against people they don't sympathize with. This inability to have principals and be consistent with them is going to bite our country a lot harder than the occasional foreign scientist lying on a grant application or the occasional foreign scientist getting wrongfully prosecuted. To be clear, I sympathize with Mr Hu. I think the organization should be getting punished here. He brought the issue to their attention and they advised him to do exactly the wrong thing and the feds screwed him for it. People, especially foreign nationals who cannot be expected to be well versed in US law, need to have a reasonable expectation that they can follow orders from HR/Legal/their boss in matters of mundane statutory compliance without getting personally screwed when the actions they took in confidence violated the law. UT is responsible for what happened to Mr. Hu and in a perfect world that would be a slam dunk tort. But his plight is just a drop in the bucket of a much larger societal problem.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
Quite apart from anything else, there should absolutely be someone asking Hard Questions about the role of the university administration here. If lying on a grant application is a fraud, then asking someone to lie on a grant application is procuring a fraud etc. That said, I have to say that if anyone asks me to lie or omit relevant information on a document that I'm sending to the government, my first response to that is going to be "let me check with my lawyer on that".
- fastaguy88 5y ago
  It is important to remember that, in general, individual faculty members do not submit grants; the institution (typically through some Office of Sponsored Programs) submit the grants. Ultimately, it is that office that has final say on what is included in the grant and what assurances are made.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The problem as I see it is that people who screech about how "just following orders isn't a defense" when people they don't sympathize with violate this or that regulatory compliance statute without harming anyone are acting as though it's a valid defense when it's someone they sympathize with. This behavior is made doubly odious because a large subset of these same people are often in favor of strict enforcement of somewhat arbitrary rules (like a disclosure requirement on an application) against people they don't sympathize with. This inability to have principals and be consistent with them is going to bite our country a lot harder than the occasional foreign scientist lying on a grant application or the occasional foreign scientist getting wrongfully prosecuted. To be clear, I sympathize with Mr Hu. I think the organization should be getting punished here. He brought the issue to their attention and they advised him to do exactly the wrong thing and the feds screwed him for it. People, especially foreign nationals who cannot be expected to be well versed in US law, need to have a reasonable expectation that they can follow orders from HR/Legal/their boss in matters of mundane statutory compliance without getting personally screwed when the actions they took in confidence violated the law. UT is responsible for what happened to Mr. Hu and in a perfect world that would be a slam dunk tort. But his plight is just a drop in the bucket of a much larger societal problem.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

Quite apart from anything else, there should absolutely be someone asking Hard Questions about the role of the university administration here. If lying on a grant application is a fraud, then asking someone to lie on a grant application is procuring a fraud etc. That said, I have to say that if anyone asks me to lie or omit relevant information on a document that I'm sending to the government, my first response to that is going to be "let me check with my lawyer on that".

fastaguy88 5y ago
It is important to remember that, in general, individual faculty members do not submit grants; the institution (typically through some Office of Sponsored Programs) submit the grants. Ultimately, it is that office that has final say on what is included in the grant and what assurances are made.