[13] Two days later in Ho Chi Minh City, at a ceremony witnessed by Secretary of State John Kerry, Fulbright University Vietnam was awarded its establishment license.

[14] During its first five years, FUV will focus on the development of two integrated academic units, a graduate school of public policy and management and an undergraduate program in engineering and the liberal arts and sciences.

FUV's undergraduate program in engineering and the liberal arts and sciences admitted a beta class in 2018 and underwent a year-long co-design process to build all aspects of the university collaboratively with the involvement of faculty, staff, and students.

[20] In 2001 an in-depth investigation by The New York Times and CBS News[21] had revealed that on 25 February 1969 Bob Kerrey had commanded a Navy SEALS unit that massacred 21 civilians in Thạnh Phong village in the Vietnam War.

Among the prominent Vietnamese critics of the appointment of Kerrey were Tôn Nữ Thị Ninh, a former ambassador to the European Union,[22] and Nguyễn Thanh Việt, an award-winning Vietnamese-American writer.

[23] The most high-ranking Vietnamese official to publicly support Kerrey's appointment was Đinh La Thăng,[24] who at the time was Communist Party Secretary of Hồ Chí Minh City and a member of the Politburo.