U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU School of Law

The U.S.-Asia Law Institute kicks off its 2024-2025 programs by taking a close look at a problem right here at home: racial profiling of Asian Americans, including at universities. During the Trump administration, the Department of Justice created the China Initiative, a program presented as safeguarding universities and businesses from economic espionage. In practice, it raised widespread concerns of racial profiling of Chinese American and immigrant academics and researchers, many of whom were accused of failing to disclose routine academic activities – but not of espionage or national security breaches. Although the program ended in 2022, there are ongoing efforts to revive it. The Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), a new civil rights advocacy organization created in response to the China Initiative, reports that Asian American and Asian researchers and scholars continue to face bias and heightened scrutiny in their working and living environments. AASF Executive Director Gisela Perez Kusakawa will discuss the current challenges faced by Asian American and Asian researchers, scholars, and students, the chilling effect this has, and the need for legal scholars to help develop innovative solutions to the tensions between national security and American values.