Elite US schools cozy with Cuban university linked to ‘intelligence network’

At least nine top-ranked American universities send students to a Cuban school tied to Cuba’s intelligence apparatus to learn about Marxism and other regime-approved topics.The State Department report puts those friendly ties, enabled by Obama-era policies, under the microscope as President Donald Trump pressures Cuba. The island nation now faces crushing sanctions, criminal charges against former officials, and Trump’s vague threats to overthrow the communist ruling elite that has held power for more than 60 years. The nine prestigious schools — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Dartmouth College, and the University of Pennsylvania — organize the Cuba student opportunities via Brown University’s Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad, their websites show. Brown launched CASA and its Cuba program in 2014, announcing it would bring “the largest U.S. academic presence in Cuba” to its state-run schools such as the University of Havana.Trump’s Cuba policies are now having such an effect that Brown University paused the program for itself and partnering institutions in April, a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. Economic blockades have led to power outages and hindered academic life for the already-struggling socialist economy, according to media reports and Cuban officials.“The uncertainty created by the current U.S.-Cuban geopolitical landscape, particularly in regard to practical, on-the-ground impacts, directly impacted recruitment efforts,” the Brown spokesperson said. “With projected enrollment shortages and that general uncertainty, the decision was for a one-semester pause. Provided conditions allow, our intent is to resume operations for Spring 2027.”“To maintain momentum in the interim and offer the chance for engagement with those involved or interested in sending students or enrolling in the program, CASA Cuba staff members — in collaboration with faculty and other experts from Brown, the University of Havana, Casas de las Americas and affiliated CASA institutions — are holding a series of virtual discussions focused on issues related to Cuba,” the Brown spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.Cornell University also confirmed the CASA Cuba program “will not be operational during the 2026-27 academic year.” The seven other American campuses and the University of Havana did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.‘Fertile ground for recruiting’ Brown University touted its CASA travel program in a 2015 press release as a step toward “restoring normalcy” with Cuba, arguing that “thoughtful dialogue between the two countries is so needed.”The U.S. intelligence community has found that Cuba’s academic pursuits are not so benign.Cuba sees college campuses as “fertile ground for recruiting ideologically sympathetic young Americans,” the State Department said. “U.S. intelligence analysis and [Cuban Intelligence Directorate] defector testimony have both established that Cuban intelligence treats infiltrating American universities as a top priority — as one former Cuban agent recounted, the regime’s intelligence operation seeks to identify politically-engaged leftist students at elite U.S. universities who will go on to ‘occupy positions of importance in the private sector and in the government,'” the department wrote.The report cited Obama and Biden administration FBI memos detailing these operations.“In one exemplary case, the [Cuban intelligence services] recruited and operated a network of professors and researchers at two prominent U.S. universities over the course of 30 years, from the 1970s through the 2000s, and exploited the professors’ standing within the academic community and their placement as mentors and advisors to assess and recruit students,” the Biden administration’s FBI wrote in 2024. One unnamed professor “claimed to have assessed as many as 50 students and colleagues, and recruited at least six motivated by admiration and loyalty,” according to the memo.CASA’s website boasts that American students can learn “the history of the United States, Cuba or Latin America, race relations or intersectionality, Marxist philosophy, and/or Afro-Caribbean culture and literature” from Cuban schools’ government-aligned lens. CASA’s president is Dr. Asabe Poloma, a Nigeria-born “global engagement” employee who leads Brown University‘s “diversity and inclusion plan for internationalization,” according to Brown’s website and tax filings. Poloma’s academic work centers largely on so-called racial equity.Likewise, the University of Havana’s Marxist affiliations run deep. Columbia University also lists “Theory and History of Marxism Leninism” and “Theory and Ideology of the Cuban Revolution” among the University of Havana course options.The Chinese government-controlled Shanghai Normal University also announced the opening of a joint “Marxism Research Center” with the University of Havana in October 2025. China has built multiple academic bridges with the University of Havana, including a “Confucius Institute” at the campus in 2009, according to Chinese and other international media reporting. Trump and Congress stripped federal funding for Confucius Institutes in the United States in 2018 due to their ties to Chinese state propaganda efforts.In multiple speeches, the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro credited his time attending the school with radicalizing him. “Here I became a revolutionary, I became a Marxist-Leninist and I acquired the ideas that I have never abandoned. … Well before I had committed myself, without having read any of those books, I was questioning capitalist political economy,” he told a 2005 audience on campus.How Obama ‘opened up the doors’ The University of Havana’s American partners gave credit to former President Barack Obama for dramatically relaxing sanctions against Cuba starting in 2014. Trump reversed the lenient policies in his first term.One student’s profile on Northwestern University’s website said that “Obama opened up the doors to a new relationship with Cuba” that allowed him to visit the country. “As we know, the Obama administration has made efforts to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and in doing so, restrictions on travel to the country have been lessened,” said a Cornell student’s profile describing her trip to Havana’s institutions.While Brown was already looking to Cuba for opportunities, Obama’s shift allowed the university to more easily send its first cohort of 29 students to CASA’s new “Havana center” and the University of Havana in 2015.“Developing critical understanding is what higher education is designed to do,” Brown said in December 2015. “The emerging Havana program is a fresh reminder of how important that mission is and an appropriate way to mark the first anniversary of an historic effort by two neighbor nations to overcome decades of separation.”STATE DEPARTMENT LINKS CUBA’S PUSH FOR ‘GUERILLA WARFARE’ TO AMERICAN LEFTIST MOVEMENTObama promised educational benefits during a 2016 press conference in Havana alongside former Cuban dictator Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, who is now federally charged with gunning down American civilian aircraft in 1996.“We’re moving ahead with more educational exchanges,” Obama told his audience. “Thanks to the generous support of the Cuban American community, I can announce that my 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative will offer new opportunities for university students to study abroad — more Americans at Cuban schools and more Cubans at U.S. schools.”