Officials of the People's Republic of China (PRC) present their global initiatives as public goods, but many Americans see the PRC's moves as those of a peer competitor aiming to create a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests. Academic and public discussions have largely ignored the challenges that may arise from the activities of PRC diplomats and PRC nationals enrolled as students at U.S. universities. This study examines whether there is evidence that PRC diplomats and students have made politically-motivated attempts to infringe on the academic freedom and personal safety of university persons at U.S. universities. Results suggest that these concerns are warranted, even if they are sometimes overblown. By documenting numerous cases in which PRC diplomats and a small number of students have infringed on university community members' academic freedom and personal safety, the study offers several insights, including: (1) PRC diplomats engage in a range of activities to monitor, influence and induce cessation of academic activities involving sensitive content on U.S. campuses; (2) PRC students are not a homogeneous group, and they can be both perpetrators and victims of politically-motivated attempts to infringe on the academic freedom and personal safety of university community members; and (3) PRC influence and interference activities have occurred not just at cash-strapped public university systems with high enrollments of PRC nationals, but also at wealthy Ivy League institutions and small liberal arts institutions. This paper suggests that government and academia should jointly convene a non-partisan team of researchers to investigate PRC influence and interference activities at American universities.