Ex-professor Feng ‘Franklin’ Tao sues US university after China spying charges overturned

A former tenured professor of chemistry accuses the University of Kansas of discrimination and improperly collaborating with the FBI. 

By Khushboo Razdanin Washington

 

A Chinese-born former chemistry professor at the University of Kansas who was wrongfully accused of being a Chinese spy has filed a lawsuit against the school, seeking to be reinstated and demanding compensation for the financial and reputational damage he has suffered.

According to court documents, Feng “Franklin” Tao said the university worked with the FBI “to arrange a surprise search of Professor Tao’s lab and home”, alleging “an improper collaboration between KU and the [US Department of Justice] to target” him.

“Upon learning that Professor Tao had been placed in custody, KU’s Deputy General Counsel congratulated the FBI by phone: ‘Job well done, gentlemen. Congrats, and thanks,’” said the lawsuit, filed this month in a federal court in Kansas.

It added that “KU’s actions and discrimination against its tenured professor – before, during and after his criminal prosecution – violated its contractual, ethical and legal obligations to Professor Tao.”

 

A lawsuit says the University of Kansas “allowed itself to join in fear mongering and racist witch hunting”.
A lawsuit says the University of Kansas “allowed itself to join in fear-mongering and racist witch hunting”.

 

Contending that KU’s “egregious conduct” left Tao’s life, career, reputation and finances in “shambles”, the suit alleges that “rather than embracing academic rigour and enlightened, critical judgment, the university allowed itself to join in fear-mongering and racist witch hunting”.

Tao was among the roughly two dozen academics charged under the Justice Department’s former “China Initiative”.

The programme began in 2018 during US president-elect Donald Trump’s first administration to address concerns about Chinese economic espionage and intellectual property theft in research.

 

It led to investigations of hundreds of Chinese-American scientists and academics, many of whom lost their jobs, and was shut down by US President Joe Biden’s administration in 2022 after allegations of racial bias.

On Wednesday, Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the China Initiative “not only seriously harms the interests of the Asian-American community in the United States, but also has a serious impact on Sino-US cultural exchanges”.

He added that although the plan had been terminated “its adverse effects have not been eliminated”.

Arrested in 2019 and jailed for a week, Tao was convicted in April 2022 on wire fraud charges and for making false statements to KU about his ties to Fuzhou University and grants from the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation.

After the conviction, the university fired him. But a US District Court judge overturned the fraud charges five months later.

In July 2024, a Denver appeal court acquitted Tao on the remaining charge of making false statements about his relationship with Fuzhou University.

In his lawsuit, Tao alleged that KU “worked closely” with the FBI on the investigation, including unlawful surveillance and collection of incomplete, one-sided and fabricated evidence.

 

“KU was wrong, should be ashamed of its actions, and deserves to be held accountable for the damage it caused to Professor Tao,” the suit says, asking the court to order the university to “reinstate Professor Tao to his tenured position”.

 

 

  • The article was reposted from the South China Morning Post.
  • Khushboo Razdan is a senior correspondent based in Washington. Before this, she worked for the Post in New York. Before joining the team, she worked as a multimedia journalist in Beijing and New Delhi for over a decade. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School.

 

 

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