Ohio State pays $2.1M settlement as it admits researcher had ‘inappropriate foreign affiliations’ to China
NASA money. Thousand Talents. They knew in 2019. NASA heard in 2023.
Summary
- Fox News reports Ohio State agreed to pay $2.1 million to resolve Justice Department allegations that it failed to disclose researchers' ties to Chinese universities and state-run labs on NASA and National Science Foundation grant papers from 2012 to 2023, including a principal investigator's place in China's Thousand Talents Program.
- Ohio State told Fox Friday it uncovered and investigated C.K. Shum's foreign affiliations, reported them to NASA and NSF, suspended his PI privileges, halted spending on the awards, started discipline, repaid the grant funds, and no longer employs him.
- DOJ said annual Faculty Activity Reports since 2014 already listed PRC university and state-lab ties that OSU did not pass to NASA or NSF. The government said Ohio State learned in 2019 that a NASA-funded researcher was in Thousand Talents and waited until 2023 to tell the agencies.
- Grant rules required disclosure of any foreign-government tie. The federal government describes Thousand Talents as a Beijing-backed hunt for people with expertise or access.
Commentary
A Columbus tool-and-die man still wipes steel dust off a cracked thumb and drives past a campus that should not hide a Beijing talent list on a NASA docket. He did not pay state tax so a 2019 file could sit four years.
Two point one million. 2019. 2023. The honest mom already paid the grant. The delay is the tell.
Ask every working father who still funds a land-grant school: if a talent list can sit four years on a NASA award, who still wants the next disclosure optional?
Comments
$2.1 million. Shum. 2019 knowledge. 2023 notice. That is a calendar, not a glitch.
I signed a clearance so a foreign lab would not sit on my bench. Name the PI. Cut the grant.
DOJ NASA/NSF. 2012-2023 window. Faculty reports since 2014. Thousand Talents. Publish the four.
Allied labs still treat an undisclosed PRC tie as a security event. A repayment is the start.
OSU self-report claim. PI privileges pulled. Funds repaid. No longer employed. File the four.
I still mill steel that a grant bought. I want the next talent-list name on a docket, not a footnote.
A tuition check should not fund Beijing's shopping list. Disclose on day one.
Four silent years is a second lab. The first Faculty Report should have been enough.
Fox printed $2.1 million, 2019, 2023, and Thousand Talents. Argue those nouns.
Keep DOJ on the grants. Publish the PI list. A talent program is not a seminar.
