AAPI advocates challenge Trump and GOP seeking to suppress voting

ANALYSIS

In yet another attempted power grab and effort to intimidate immigrant communities, which historically voted Democratic, Donald Trump signed last week an executive order misleadingly titled, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”

The order, signed March 25, threatens our democracy by intending to require burdensome documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, encouraging the purging of eligible voters from error-prone database comparisons, and attempting to pressure states from counting mail-in and absentee ballots properly mailed on Election Day. 

 “We are dismayed by President Trump’s attempt to undermine civic engagement and vilify immigrant communities, including Asian Americans. Voting is a fundamental right, not a privilege, for all who are eligible, and all eligible votes must be counted during elections," said Asian Americans Advancing Justice in a statement

"Documentary proof of citizenship, like a passport, is onerous because many Americans don’t have it readily available or even handy when they register to vote."

FYI: Read the lawsuit, League of Women Voters et. al. v. Trump et. al.:, 

The Constitution clearly specifies that Congress and the states can set the rules for our elections, not the President. 

Nevertheless, the White House claims that the executive order is necessarily to prevent noncitizens from voting even though there is no evidence they do in significant numbers in the United States. The order threatens states that do not comply with the loss of federal funding.

Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, called the order “the farthest-reaching executive action taken” in the country’s history.

The Order’s misguided focus on database matching is alarming because it is prone to errors due to outdated and contradictory information," responds AAAJ. "We know that these Homeland Security databases generally don’t contain information about US-born citizens. As a result, those who are caught in this unwarranted fishing expedition are most likely to be eligible voters who are naturalized citizens. Past attempts to match voter lists at the state level have already erroneously removed many eligible voters."

“This executive order is rooted in baseless rhetoric around voter fraud and noncitizen voting, which is extremely rare, proving yet again that the ultimate goal of this administration is to prevent American citizens who are disfavored by this Administration from voting," says AAAJ. 

"This executive order comes from the same xenophobic impulse as the suspension of federal grants to community organizations helping immigrants naturalize. We saw that same rhetoric in the attempt to slash the Constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. We stand firm in our commitment to protecting vulnerable communities and making sure that every eligible individual can make their voice heard at the ballot box.”

AAAJ is part of a coalition filing the lawsuit challenging Trump’s unlawful executive order. Other groups in the coalition include Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, Organization of Chinese Associations-Asian Pacific American Advocates and a host of other civil rights organizations including the Hispanic Federation, National League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Arizona, League of Women Voters Education Fund, NAACP, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., the Legal Defense Fund, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

The groups are challenging the order’s usurpation of powers, including its directive for the US Election Assistance Commission to change the federal voter registration form to require burdensome submission of documents to prove citizenship, which many Americans do not have or cannot easily acquire.

Under current law, would-be voters are required to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are US citizens and eligible to vote, and to provide a driver's license number, state ID number or Social Security number. Those who attempt to vote illegally can face prison time, fines or deportation.

Several audits by nonpartisan groups and states, including those that voted for Trump and even the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, have not found any evidence that noncitizens are registering to vote at significant rates.

The coalition which filed the lawsuit against the executive order, released the following joint statement:

“The president has no constitutional or statutory authority to unilaterally dictate how elections are run. This executive order is a blatant violation of the separation of powers. Election rules are decided by Congress and the states, and any attempt by the executive branch to override their power violates the Constitution. This order, based on a persistent false and racialized narrative, could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. It mirrors the SAVE Act, which would add unnecessary barriers to voter registration and silence the voices of American citizens. These unlawful attacks on voting rights are part of a broader effort to undermine our democracy. We have filed suit to stop this executive order and to keep it from interfering with eligible voters’ participation in our elections.”

The executive order and the SAVE Act are just one facet of the overall Republican strategy to weaken the Democratic voters influence. The GOP depends on voter suppression to narrow the margin between Democrats and Republicans because there are more people registered Democrat than Republican. In addition to presenting obstacles to voting and making large portions of the US citizenry ineligible to vote, the GOP use a barrage of lies and misinformation to woo voters to more conservatie policies and Republican candidates.

Prior to a vote on the Executive Order, also known as the SAVE Act, Rep. Terri Sewell n, D-Alabama, sargued against the bill on the House floor on April 1: 

"In reality, this legislation would purge thousands of eligible voters from the rolls. It would create significant barriers for the 69 million women who currently got married and changed their last names, so their birth certificates do not match their marriage certificates, and thus it would be harder for these women, almost 70 million women, to vote, and the 140 million Americans that do not have a passport, and those with military IDs and tribal IDs, none of which would be able to prove their birth citizenship. These are not included in the bill as proper forms of ID that will allow someone to show their citizenship."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

 

Beware fake news; disinformation campaigns seeks to confuse, divide, dampen and anger AANHPI voters

ANALYSIS

As the 2022 Midterm election on Nov. 8 draws nearer, fake news has ramped up seeking to nullify the growing influence of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.

As the political influence of Asian Americans increases, bad actors have worked to build sprawling misinformation networks, including a vast media empire bankrolled by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, targeting members of the Asian American diaspora, says community advocates such as Advancing Asian American Justice (AAAJ).

“The conservative right-wing are better organized, and they know how to manipulate the concerns and fears of the Chinese-speaking community,” says Elaine Peng, president of the Mental Health Association for Chinese Communities. “It is easy for the community to believe and trust them. The right-wing rely heavily on misinformation and disinformation to advance their conservative agendas."

Harmful narratives are one of the greatest challenges facing Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in today’s world. They are making communities less safe, our trust in the election systems weaker, and even tearing some families apart.

RELATED: Negative campaigning targeting AANHPI electorate

Disinformation is explicitly designed to expose the frictions, fault lines, and tensions within and across our various diasporic communities while also working to deplatform AANHPI communities from democracy and create divisions with other communities of color.

Dis/misinformation exposes frictions, fault lines, and tensions within and across our various diasporic communities, according to a report by Asian American Disinformation Table,  a coalition of AANHPI organizations that coordinates research, strategies, policy recommendations, pop culture, messaging interventions, & corporate accountability around issues of domestic & transnational misinformation and disinformation impacting Asian Americans.

The Table's study found problematic narratives span three key themes: 

1. Using Asians as ‘wedges’ against other communities of color; 

2. Exploiting internal divides and hierarchies within Asian communities; 

3. Weaponizing current and historical traumas. W

So where is all the fake news coming from? In all the articles read by Views From the Edge, no one was able to point fingers at any single entity. The mis/disinformation is coming from multiple sources with multiple agendas, from foreign entities who wish to destabilize US society to radical Republicans who want to dominate Washington politics to advocates of a single issue like abortion or affirmative action. 

Certainly most of the messaging of fake news leading up to the Midterms is coming from the radical right. However, their conservative political goals easily leak into other issues that -- in their perspective -- are all interconnected: affirmative action, social security, Medicare, what histories and books are being taught in the US schools, anti-abortion, the role of big government on social issues to advocates of any number of strategies that fatten the pockets of billionaires. And we cannot forget the White racists who are afraid of losing their dominance and influence on US society.

Self-proclaimed newscasters on YouTube have become a primary news source for some Chinese speakers in the US, offering political hot takes that often slide into misinformation, says Jenny L., who helps track disinformation and misinformation for AAAJ.

She asked Medium that her last name be withheld to avoid online harassment. “It’s pretty easy for them to skirt the minimal moderation YouTube has in place for non-English content,” she says.

The AANHPI communities, particularly first-generation immigrants who are English-language learners, are among the most vulnerable to false narratives often due to limited language access to available resources and information. Many rely on community-translated content for important information such as voting and the election process, leaving room for bad actors to inject falsehoods.

Falsehoods spread range from harmful health misinformation to lies about the 2020 presidential election. Through translations of false claims and original content creation, these well-resourced groups have made mis/disinfo “accessible” to in-language communities, carefully exploiting home country biases and sensitive topics such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution to cater their messaging to vulnerable diaspora communities.

These efforts have not been effective. A growing subset of the Asian American community — largely first-generation immigrants for whom English is not their native tongue — subscribe to “the big lie,” question the integrity of electoral processes in the United States, and believe their children are being “indoctrinated” by “critical race theory” in public schools.

The success of this misinformation helped propel politicians to victory in elections, including in the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, and if left unchecked, this infodemic has dangerous implications for the 2022 midterms.

Chinese-language content on Twitter, YouTube, and WeChat leading up to and immediately after the 2021 California recall election and the 2021 Virginia governor’s race was rife with false claims and misleading information.

Unfortunately, attempts by social media platforms to monitor false information  have failed to stop the spread of fake news. When it comes to monitoring the misinformation in a foreign language those efforts are even less effective.

In response to growing mis/information, several groups have emerged to fact-check and counter the misinformation.

Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) launched its pioneering Chinese Digital Engagement program in 2019 to provide accurate information to the Chinese American community about issues related to social justice such as immigration reform, racial justice, and affirmative action. Its work includes three WeChat channels and the websites JusticePatch.org and PiYaoBa.org. Launched in early 2022, “PiYaoBa” means “let’s fact-check it” in Mandarin Chinese and is the first centralized Chinese-language fact-checking website to combat right-wing disinformation.

“We saw how people were being manipulated by fake news and rumors,” says Vincent Pan, CAA’s Co-Executive Director. “It is imperative that there be trusted sources providing factual information. As a civil rights organization with a long history serving our community, CAA stepped up to fill the need.”

The Chinese Digital Engagement team at CAA systematically researches and documents misinformation and disinformation. As detailed in the report, from April 1 to September 15, 2022, the team found 320 major disinformation narratives from 138 different social media accounts and channels. Some examples of the rumors being spread include the false assertion that the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago is a Democratic Party conspiracy to rig the midterm elections. The most popular conspiracy theories push the narrative that election fraud is prevalent, threatening the very foundation of our democracy.

Jinxia Niu, CAA’s Chinese Digital Engagement program manager, warns that Chinese-language mis/disinformation poses an even greater challenge than English-language disinformation because WeChat’s closed nature and censorship makes it difficult to share accurate information.

“Although we monitor disinformation daily and have published more than 900 Chinese-language articles across our WeChat channels and websites, this is not nearly enough — and we can’t do this alone,” Niu says. “The public, policy makers, social media platforms, and community partners need to be aware of the threat of disinformation so that we can address it together.”

To counter the mis/disinformation trying to confuse AANHPI voters, a number of community advocates have created fact-checking sites.

Fake news targeting older Indian immigrants was widespread on WhatsApp, including claims that ballots would not count if voters selected Democrats for every post or if election officials signed dropped-off ballots.

“There’s just a lot of inaccurate information for an already confusing process and this year is different for everybody because we’re relying on virtual connections more than ever,” North Carolina Asian Americans Together Executive Director Chavi Khanna Koneru told Reuters in 2020.

Desifacts, a project of the advocacy group Indian American Impact, began publishing explainers on relevant topics focusing on South Asian American communities in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil this year.

“The pervasive spread of mis- and disinformation exacerbates partisan disagreement, erodes trust in our democracy, stifles or prevents voter participation, and has tremendous consequences on health outcomes such as personal decisions around getting vaccinated,” read a statement on the Desifacts website. “In South Asian communities, misinformation has fueled Islamophobia and racism against other communities of color.”

Viet Fact Check, one of the few multilingual groups that debunk false information, has observed an uptick in falsehoods targeting Vietnamese American communities online.

“There’s definitely a hyper-targeting of messaging,” said Viet Fact Check co-founder Nick Nguyen. “This is where a lack of English-language fluency can make populations vulnerable.”

To further combat the spread of mis/disinformation within AANHPI communities, Advancing Justice — AAJC has been tracking messaging trends on social media to gain a better understanding of how bad actors will likely amplify their disinformation campaigns leading up to the November midterms this fall. This is what they found:

Twitter

Several tweets, many with hundreds of likes or retweets, were direct translations of false claims from individuals like former president Donald Trump and Sidney Powell or news organizations like Newsmax; these tweets (see example below) often linked to original English-language videos or posts that perpetuate false claims, such as referencing the presidential election scam or baselessly asserting mail-in ballot fraud. 

In Virginia, tweets the day before and the day of the election sought to sow distrust in the election results before polls even closed. The following tweet made false accusations about Democrats “stealing” the election. Others stated that the Republican candidate should win and any other election outcome would indicate fraud, disregarding the fact democratic electoral systems give each candidate a fair shot.

NBC

Additional tweets both leading up to and after the recall election of California's Gov. Gavin Newsom attempted to falsely attribute various perceived ills of California, such as homelessness and crime, to one candidate. Not surprisingly, several popular tweets surrounding the recall originated from in-language media outlets known for promoting fake news and baseless conspiracy narratives. 

YouTube

Another common feature in disinformation targeting Chinese Americans and immigrants is showcasing anti-CCP, anti-communism narratives that incite fear among Asian American communities. Similarly, the video below posted at the beginning of September included various pieces of misinformation concerning existing California laws, including a false assertion about Proposition 47 despite facts stating the law does not end prosecution of thefts under $950 in the state, and misrepresentations of the effects of affirmative action. The video also made incorrect claims about perpetrators of anti-Asian violence. Though some high-profile videos have attempted to paint a different picture, most anti-Asian attacks are perpetrated by white people whose hate is driven by white supremacy and racism.

For example, in Virginia, education-focused topics, especially surrounding critical race theory (CRT), dominated election-related misinformation narratives on YouTube, reflecting the broader campaign on the right to misinform the public about the true nature of CRT. In the video below, a Chinese American volunteer for a political candidate was interviewed to speak about how opposition to CRT, which the individual incorrectly stated “caused discrimination,” helped galvanize Chinese American support for the candidate. In the months leading up to the election, the following video of a Chinese American mother of a Loudon County public school student falsely conflated CRT with the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

WeChat

WeChat misinformation was used to successfully organize Chinese American voters against San Francisco's progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin and prematurely end his term. 

This social media site based in China and flew under the radar for years until right-wingers began using it to garner political support and organize. Despite polls showing Asian America's overwhelming support of affirmative action, in 2014 conservative Chinese were able to garner headlines in mainstream media and distort the narrative to defeat a California measure attempting to overturn the state's anti-affirmative action law. 

“There was no such mobilization [among the Chinese American] community before WeChat happened,” says Steven Chen, a Los Angeles–area computer engineer who immigrated to the United States from mainland China in the late 1980s.

WeChat articles available to the public also showed extensive mis/disinfo narratives. A WeChat article  detailed reasons for supporting the Republican candidate and promoted disinformation including “irregularities” and “fraud” in the 2020 election relating to unfounded claims. Similar to mis/disinformation trends on Twitter and YouTube, several WeChat articles contained various misrepresentation of the current governor’s policies and statistics regarding crime and economic growth in California. 

These articles repeatedly made false assertions and perpetuated lies that seek to incite fear and anxiety among first generation immigrant communities and fuel division between communities of color, who have been working in solidarity to dismantle racism and white supremacy throughout our nation’s history

Virginia saw similar misrepresentations of its former governor’s policies and beliefs. Some WeChat articles made baseless claims that he introduced “CRT” into Virginia schools as early as 2015 and lowered academic standards, when the truth is critical race theory is not a part of the K-12 curriculum in the state. Others continued to perpetuate conspiracy theories and false assertations on the integrity of our electoral system, further galvanizing voters.

Chinese-language mis/disinfo related to the recall and the Virginia governor’s race appeared to be largely recycled mis/disinfo narratives from certain English-language channels, with additional emphasis on areas especially important to a Chinese American audience, such as crime, education, and anti-Asian hate. These mis/disinfo stories played on the Chinese American and immigrant community’s fears that California and Virginia would “turn into China” and heightened anxiety around perceived threats of socialism and communism.

Disinformation is also being used to direct hate towards AANHPI communities, and pit those ethnic groups against other people of color. This issue will only continue to grow if big, structural changes are not made, making it critical that we are prepared and able to respond.

“WeChat is a monster,” says Janelle Wong, a political scientist and professor of Asian American studies at the University of Maryland. “There’s nothing like it on Earth,” she told The Atlantic.

What can be done?

Valiant efforts by grassroot organizations trying to counter or expose the spread of mis/disinformation is not enough.

Tech companies, social media platforms, and politicians alike need to take more concrete actions to protect AANHPI communities from mis/disinformation in their native languages; content in different languages cannot continue to be treated as a “foreign” problem. Steps such as hiring more content moderators with appropriate language and cultural competency, banning the use of discriminatory algorithms, and creating greater platform transparency could make a large difference in shielding communities from harmful mis/disinformation narratives that pose tangible threats to US democracy.

“A growing subset of the Asian American community — largely first-generation immigrants for whom English is not their native tongue — subscribe to 'the big lie,' question the integrity of electoral processes in the United States, and believe their children are being 'indoctrinated' by 'critical race theory' in public schools,” AAJC explained.

“It’s not that we only have a WeChat or a WhatsApp problem; these platforms are accelerants,” said Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Asian Americans Against Trump, who is familiar with misinformation on WeChat. “It accelerates a lot of vulnerabilities that Chinese and other Asian immigrants with limited English proficiency have. They live in (an information) scarcity, under tremendous social and economic pressure and uncertainty.”

“Tech companies, social media platforms, and politicians alike need to take more concrete actions to protect Asian American communities from mis/disinformation in their native languages; content in different languages cannot continue to be treated as a 'foreign' problem,” AAJC pointed out.

Social media's false information poses dangerous implications for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island voters this year in the Midterm elections when AANHPI voters can tilt the scales in key races deciding whether  Democrats or Republicans control the House and Senate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

 

Another SCOTUS target? AANHPI rally around Harvard's admissions policy using affirmative action

 

Asian Americans join other students of color in their support for Harvard's admission policies.

Harvard University and its supporters, girding themselves for the possible dismantling of affirmative action, filed a host of friend of the court briefs Monday. 

With Asan Americans reportedly alleging that Harvard discriminated against them in its admissions process, it is noteworthy that some of the strongest arguments on behalf of affirmative action came from Asian American groups and individuals.

Faced with an ultra conservative Supreme Court that through its reversal on Roe v. Wade demonstrated it has no respect for legal precedent, the Ivy League school , business, educators and legal organizations filed friends of the court briefs supporting the need for diversity in higher education and in the real world. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Harvard case in ints next session which begins Oct. 1.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, filed a brief on behalf of itself and 121 other Asian groups or individuals) that said, “The notion that race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans relies on and perpetuates harmful stereotypes against Asian Americans. The Asian American community is vast and varied, including first-generation college students and children whose parents’ professions secured their immigration; children of working-class refugees and multigenerational Americans; speakers of over 300 languages; aspiring entrepreneurs, artists, teachers and more.”

Margaret Fung, AALDEF executive director, said: “Significantly, not a single Asian American applicant offered testimony claiming to be a victim of discrimination. Harvard’s individualized admissions process, which takes race into account, actually helps to dispel the harmful ‘model minority’ myth by recognizing the vast ethnic, language, and socioeconomic diversity within the Asian American community.”

Despite some attempts by nonAsian media to paint a deep divide among AANHPI, a number of polls, including a survey by AAPIData showed that Asian Americans overwhelmingly support affirmative action, three-to-one.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice (Advancing Justice) filed two amicus briefs Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court in SFFA v. Harvard, affirming its longstanding support for race-conscious admissions in higher education.

“For centuries, communities of color, including Asian Americans, have struggled against racial discrimination and faced systemic barriers to education, employment, and immigration, among other challenges,” said John C. Yang, President and Executive Director of Advancing Justice – AAJC. “Race, ethnicity, and our lived experiences are integral parts of our personal story and collective history. Holistic admissions ensures all students have the opportunity to share their whole story in addition to their academic achievements.”

The amicus brief affirms that Harvard and UNC’s race-conscious admissions programs do not discriminate against AAPI students, but rather expand their access to higher education. The brief also highlights the educational benefits of racial diversity for AAPI communities and asserts that eliminating the consideration of race in admissions programs will harm AAPI and other students of color.

“Our communities know better than to give into extremist strategist Edward Blum’s years-long mission to deny Black, Latinx, Asian American, and other communities of color equal voting rights and educational opportunities,” said Aarti Kohli, Executive Director of Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus. “As a parent, my children have had more chances to grow and thrive because of affirmative action, diversity, and anti-discrimination programs in our education systems. As a civil rights lawyer, there’s no question these attacks on the constitutionality of race conscious programs are a thinly veiled strategy to limit educational opportunities for all students of color.”

Students for Fair Admissions headed by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum filed the complaint against Harvard in 2014. The lower courts have ruled in favor of Harvard.'s admission policies. 

Blum hopes the current  conservative majority in the Supreme Court will overturn the concept of affirmative action which has survived four earlier SCOTUS cases. The conservative majority of Justices demonstrated they have no problem overturning long-standing precedent when  in June they ruled, 6-3, against Roe v. Wade, which gave women the right to abortion.

Harvard also got a big boost when big tech companies led by Apple and Google filed a brief asked the Supreme Court not to do away with affirmative action, saying the companies seek racial diversity when hiring employees.

They were among roughly 70 companies in the technology, finance and health care industries staking a claim in one of the high court’s most watched cases during its next term.

"Diverse workforces improve … business performance — and thus strengthen the American and global economies. [The companies] seek employees who have been educated at universities with exposure to a broad array of life experiences and viewpoints, and who can bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the workplace,” the 47-page brief read.

Some of the other major companies that signed onto the brief include Airbnb, American Airlines, American Express, Dell Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel, PayPal, Meta Platforms, Starbucks, The Hershey Company, The Kraft Heinz Company, Uber, United Airlines and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Harvard's defenders included a host of other universities who point to the 1978 case of Regents of University of California v Bakke, where the high court ruled that racial quotas were unlawful, but consideration of race as one part of an admissions factor is constitutional.

The president of the University of California system and chancellors of UC’s 10 campuses said their system was an example of what the court should avoid.

“For the past 25 years, UC has served as just such a laborator(y) for experimentation,” the brief said. “After Proposition 209 (which banned affirmative action) barred consideration of race in admissions decisions at public universities in California, freshmen enrollees from underrepresented minority groups dropped precipitously at UC, and dropped by 50% or more at UC’s most selective campuses. Since then, UC has implemented numerous and wide-ranging race-neutral measures designed to increase diversity of all sorts, including racial diversity … Those programs have enabled UC to make significant gains in its system-wide diversity. 

"Yet despite its extensive efforts, UC struggles to enroll a student body that is sufficiently racially diverse to attain the educational benefits of diversity. The short-fall is especially apparent at UC’s most selective campuses, where African American, Native American, and Latinx students are underrepresented and widely report struggling with feelings of racial isolation.”

Hoping to sway the six Catholic Supreme Court Justices, Georgetown University filed a brief as part of a joint effort with 56 Catholic institutions, including the University of Notre Dame, the College of the Holy Cross, DePaul University and Villanova University. Their brief affirms that the right to consider racial diversity in a holistic admissions process to build a diverse student body and learning environment is essential to their academic and religious missions. Achieving racial diversity in admissions, the brief asserts, is “inextricably intertwined” with Catholic universities and colleges’ religious foundations.

The brief also argues that this right is rooted in the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Free Exercise Clause, particularly for Catholic higher education institutions, whose ability to have discretion in how they choose students is critical to their religious missions. 

Harvard's own student and alumni amici attested to how a diverse campus benefits all students, including addressing racial isolation and increasing cross-racial understanding and cultural competency that better prepared them for their professional careers. 

Asian American amici, some who testified in court, also affirmed benefiting from race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard, which provided them the opportunity to share their whole story, including their race and ethnicity, background, and diverse experiences. Asian American students which the Students for Fair Admissions purport to represent offered no in-person testimony.

“Absolute neutrality has never been a universal constitutional principle,” Harvard argued in its own behalf, saying that the framers of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment saw race-conscious measures as necessary to ensure Black people’s “equal participation in society” following the Civil War.

Harvard’s website cites Asian American student acceptance at 25.9% and African American students at 15.9% out of 2,320 total. Lower courts have ruled in favor of Harvard and UNC, but the university remains steadfast in its mission to diversify its student body.

“Harvard has repeatedly studied and continues to evaluate the importance of student-body diversity to its educational objectives and whether a race-conscious admissions process remains necessary to achieve them,” Harvard's brief said. “But as the district court observed, ‘we are not there yet.’”

“No alternative is presently workable,” states Harvard. “Until that changes, Harvard must be allowed to consider race as one of many characteristics in admissions to achieve the compelling benefits of student-body diversity.”

The Advancing Justice brief affirms that Harvard and UNC’s race-conscious admissions programs do not discriminate against AAPI students, but rather expand their access to higher education. The brief also highlights the educational benefits of racial diversity for AAPI communities and asserts that eliminating the consideration of race in admissions programs will harm AAPI and other students of color. 

“For too long, the model minority myth has propagated a false premise that AAPIs don’t benefit from race conscious admissions practices,” said Connie Chung Jose, CEO, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL). “The reality is that our communities also face discrimination and barriers to opportunities that race conscious admissions can address. And for AAPI students and other students of color, having a racially diverse student body is not only important to their educational experience, but often necessary to fully articulate the hurdles, achievements, and personal development experiences intrinsic to college admissions evaluations.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

AAPI community advocates file brief supporting 'China Initiative' victim

Temple University Professor Xiaoxing Xi

Amid increased concerns over the FBI’s and Justice Department’s targeting of scientists based on their Chinese descent, 72 Asian American organizations, civil rights groups, science associations, and academic groups filed an amicus brief supporting a professor's appeal to reinstate his suit vs. the federal government.

The brief in Xi v. Haugen, pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 

 calls on the US government to end the China Initiative, a policy launched by the Trump administration, that is being criticized for its discriminatory targeting and racial profiling of Asian Americans and Asian immigrants.

“By targeting scientists for investigation based on their ancestry rather than evidence of crime and naming the China Initiative after those practices, the FBI and Justice Department perpetuate insidious stereotypes of Asian Americans as disloyal and inherently suspect,” noted Glenn Katon, litigation director at Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. “Those FBI and Justice Department practices also divert resources from investigating real dangers to our communities.”

Advancing Justice - AAJC and Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus submitted the brief in support of Temple University Professor Xiaoxing Xi’s appeal to reinstate his claims for damages against the federal government for their discriminatory investigation and prosecution of charges that were later dismissed. 

In 2015, FBI agents entered Xi’s home with a battering ram, pointed guns at him, his wife, and two daughters, and arrested him. The government falsely accused him of sharing sensitive technology for a pocket heater with scientists in China, for which he faced potentially 80 years in prison and $1 million in fines. 

The Justice Department dismissed the indictment after federal agents learned that they had misunderstood the technology, and that universities regularly encourage academics to share this legally protected information.

“It is a very difficult fight for me, my wife, and my daughter to hold the government accountable for the wrong they did to us,” said Professor Xiaoxing Xi, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physics at Temple University. 

“But we must do this because if they can violate our rights without any consequence, the lives of many more innocent people may be ruined like what happened to us. We will fight for as long as it takes, not just for ourselves, but for countless people who are being profiled by the Department of Justice because of their ethnicity or where they came from.”

“The U.S. government has an abysmal track record on the treatment of Asian American and immigrants and has often scapegoated our communities as national security threats,” said Gisela Kusakawa, staff attorney of Anti-Racial Profiling and Immigration at Advancing Justice - AAJC. 

“This has worsened under the Justice Department’s controversial ‘China Initiative,’ which has driven federal prosecutors and FBI agents to target Asian American and immigrant scientists based on their ethnicity. It’s time to end racial profiling starting with terminating this initiative now.”

The Asian American community, along with civil rights and academic groups, are standing in solidarity with Xi and his family in calling for government accountability for this injustice in their appeal after a federal district court dismissed nine of Professor Xi’s 10 claims.  

Xi is one of many Asian American and Asian immigrant scientists, researchers annd academics across the country who have been targeted and profiled by the federal government and law enforcement allege critics of the initiative. 

“By targeting scientists for investigation based on their ancestry rather than evidence of crime and naming the China Initiative after those practices, the FBI and Justice Department perpetuate insidious stereotypes of Asian Americans as disloyal and inherently suspect,” noted Glenn Katon, litigation director at Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. “Those FBI and Justice Department practices also divert resources from investigating real dangers to our communities.”

The amicus brief addresses the widespread prevalence of racial discrimination and profiling against Asian Americans and immigrants, particularly scientists and academics of Chinese descent in the last decade, when Xi was subjected to racially motivated actions alleged in his Complaint. 

The brief alleges that context reveals racial bias against persons of Chinese descent which has permeated federal agencies and influenced FBI training, investigations, and prosecutions, traumatizing families and undermining the credibility of our institutions.

“The government’s wrongful prosecution of Professor Xi had devastating consequences for him and his family. Years later, they are still dealing with the trauma of this ordeal,” said Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “If the Xis are unable to hold the government accountable, there will be little to stop the government from profiling other Asian American scientists and upending more lives as a result.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

Conservative Supreme Court could sound death knell of affirmative action

REGIONAL STUDIES EAST ASIA PROGRAM, HARVARD

Recent graduates celebrate during Harvard University's commencement ceremonies.

ANALYSIS

The US Supreme Court added affirmative action to it's hit list of progressive positions it wants to undermine or eliminate. First it gutted the Voting Rights Act, then added provisions that practically abolished Roe v. Wade in some states and now, on Jan. 24,  the Supreme Court decided to take on affirmative action.

For over a half century, the Supreme Court and almost all the lower courts have affirmed the need to take into account race as a factor in school admissions. But this is not a moderate court. The Republican controlled Senate and the GOP's rightwing has taken over the highest court in the land, now controlling six of the nine Justices. This is a new court, prone to making decisions on a partisan basis instead of relying on precedent and the Constitution.

And Asian Americans are right in the middle of this scrum that will decided the future of affirmative action, a keystone policy that has guided the US towards equity in school admissions and job opportunities for over a half-century.

"Affirmative action, diversity, and anti-discrimination programs are essential to opening up opportunities for women and people of color, including Asian Americans, in all aspects of public life, including higher education, and have been foundational building blocks for a more just and equitable society," said a statement from Asian American Advancing Justice, a coalition of five AAPI legal aid organizations.

On Jan. 24, the high court decided to hear the arguments in the cases of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University, and SFFA v. University of North Carolina.

In both complaints, SFFA contends that the admissions processes of the universities discriminated against qualified Asian Americans.

SFFA, a front for anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, purports to represent Asian American students who were allegedly denied admission to these schools in favor of less qualified students.

“Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas,” said Blum in a statement. “Every college applicant should be judged as a unique individual, not as some representative of a racial or ethnic group.”

Lower courts and in two previous decisions by the Supreme Court have recognized the need to consider race as one factor in the school admission process in order to open its campuses to groups that have been underrepresented. The courts have admitted the necessity to retain affirmative action, which was first introduced in 1965 and received its first legal challenge in 1978.

The last time the High Court ruled on affirmative action was in 2016 involving the University of Texas admission procedures. At the time, the Justices ruled in favor of using race as a factor in admissions.

But that was then. Today, the Supreme Court is ruled by six conservative majority, including three who were appointed by Donald Trump. The Supreme Court will likely hear oral arguments on the case in October this year and render a ruling in 2023.

In order to avoid the appearance of "reverse discrimination," a flaw that plagued Blum's other attempts to prove affirmative action discriminated against White students, he convinced disgruntled Asian American applicants who failed to get admitted to Harvard to join a complaint against Harvard.

The legal complaint was filed in 2014. Although lower courts filed in favor of Harvard, Blum persisted and appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020. The Justices deferred hearing the case, but asked the U.S. Solicitor General to give Biden administration's position and recommendation. The Solicitor General last November recommended that the Justices  reject Blum's appeal.

Of the 2,230 first-year students accepted at Harvard in the fall of 2021, 25.9% were Asian American; Blacks made up 15.9%; Latinos, 12.5%; Native American, 1.1%; Native Hawaiian, 0.5%. Whites made up about 45% of the class of 2025, still the largest ethnic group.

“Race continues to unfairly limit educational opportunities for students of color,” said. Niyati Shah, director of litigation for the group Asian Americans Advancing Justice, after the court announced its decision to accept the case. “Race-conscious admission policies provide the chance for the student to tell their whole story, inclusive of their race, ethnicity, and lived experiences, in addition to their academic achievements.

Shah added: "Asian Americans are being used as a wedge in these cases to try to dismantle race-conscious admissions policies, but the fact is 70% of Asian Americans support affirmative action. ... We reject the use of Asian Americans as proxies to attack the constitutionality of race-conscious programs. Race-conscious programs should not be conflated with racial quotas or other forms of unlawful discrimination.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: I was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley under the affirmative action program. For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

Judge acquits Chinese American researcher of espionage charges

University of Tennessee Professor Anming Hu

A federal judge from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee acquitted University of Tennessee (UT) Engineering Professor Anming Hu of all charges after his trial resulted in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked. 

"Dr. Hu is finally free to return to his life and be reunited with his family," said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, said in a statement. But the "scars of the prosecution and investigation on Dr. Hu and his family are deep and long-lasting."

Dr. Hu’s case was the first to go to trial under the controversial U.S. Department of Justice's controversial China Initiative. The decision came after the U.S. government’s announcement to retry the case in July despite serious concerns voiced by elected officials, civil rights groups, and the Asian American community over the FBI’s conduct during the course of its investigation of Dr. Hu. 

U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan  wrote in his rulings: "[E]ven viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, no rational jury could conclude that defendant acted with a scheme to defraud NASA" in failing to disclose his affiliation with the Beijing University of Technology to UTK.

The judge added "there was no evidence presented that defendant ever collaborated with a Chinese university in conducting his NASA-funded research, or used facilities, equipment, or funds from a Chinese university in the course of such research."

The case against Hu was the first attempt at prosecuting a suspect under the Trump administration's China Initiative, that has come under fire from civil rights and AAPI community organizations.

"Although we celebrate this moment, we cannot forget the life-long consequences this injustice has had on Dr. Hu and his family," said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. 

"Dr. Hu has lost years of his life, his job, his immigration status, his ability to obtain future federal grants, and possibly his career," he added.

Yang continued: "What happened to Dr. Hu and his family is not an isolated event and is part of systemic racial bias, discrimination, and profiling by our federal government against scientists and researchers of Asian descent across the country. ... We must put a stop to the racial profiling and the criminalization of our communities today, starting with ending the China Initiative.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more commentary and references, follow me on Twitter @dioknoed.