National Review Is Up for the Dao Prize

In October of last year, National Review's Haley Strack exposed Thomas Jefferson High School's deeply concerning relationship with the Chinese Communist Party:

Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School has been so successful as America’s leading science, technology, engineering, and mathematics school that the Chinese Communist Party is working diligently to clone it, with the help of the school’s leadership.

CCP-linked entities have in recent years leveraged millions in donations to secure the school’s strategically vital intellectual property, according to internal documents obtained by the watchdog group Parents Defending Education (PDE) and shared with National Review.

After collecting generous donations through an affiliated nonprofit, TJ administrators handed the blueprint to America’s top-ranked STEM school — including its curriculum, syllabi, and floor plans — to America’s chief rival. Across China, there are now tens of state-sponsored Thomas Jefferson High School replicas, dubbed the Thomas Schools.

Chinese entities have donated $3.6 million to TJ through the Thomas Jefferson Partnership Fund, a nonprofit organization the school set up in 1999 to aid with fundraising efforts.

Tonight, Haley is being recognized for her outstanding reporting as a finalist for the National Journalism Center's Dao Prize, which was founded to celebrate excellence in investigative journalism.

We'll find out at tonight's award dinner whether Haley is taking home the grand prize, but that she was named a finalist at all is a testament to the impact of the work she continues to do as a former Buckley fellow and current staff writer.

If you missed Haley's story when it was first published, I urge you to go back and read it in full. You won't regret it.