Media Contacts
Press Line
Tel. (+1) 212-573-5128
Fax (+1) 212-351-3643
office-of-
communications@fordfoundation.org
Fiona Guthrie
Media Relations Chief
Tel. (+1) 212-573-4825
Joe Voeller
Senior Communications Officer
Tel. (+1) 212-573-4821
Ford Foundation Statement on University Arrests
NEW YORK, 12 January 2006 — As part of its long-standing commitment to higher education around the world, the Ford Foundation has supported Florida International University and its Cuba Research Institute with a number of grants since 1992 for international academic exchanges.
We were therefore dismayed to learn this week that two scholars affiliated with FIU have been charged as illegal foreign agents.
Although our funds appear to have been used in good faith by the University for the purposes for which they were intended, we are continuing to work with FIU to ensure that this is the case.
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.