Asian-American Scholars Urge Scientists to Boycott U.S. Labs

Provided by Dennis Su

New York Times
 May 31, 2000

By JAMES GLANZ

A national organization of scholars and educators voted on Friday to call upon Asian-American scientists to boycott federal laboratories by not applying for jobs with them.  The organization, called the Association for Asian American Studies, said it was objecting to what it sees as a common thread of racial discrimination in the treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a former government scientist accused of mishandling nuclear secrets, and in the application of security rules to Asian-American scientists who remain in federal laboratories.  The association is the second scholarly group this year to issue such a call concerning the laboratories, which are run by the Department of Energy. In March, Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, a group based in California, issued a boycott call after citing related grievances.  Because Asians and Asian-Americans account for more than a quarter of all Ph.D.'s awarded in science and technology by American universities each year, the impact on the laboratories could be serious if young scientists decided to heed the call.  "This kind of case touches a very raw nerve," said Prof. Stephen H. Sumida, a professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle and past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. "I think everybody in the organization knows that the 'suspect pattern' of the treatment of Asian-Americans goes back to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II."  Although the reaction among Asian-American scientists at the laboratories to the earlier resolution was mixed, the resolution has been the subject of intense discussion and debate, as well as a source of concern to Energy Department officials.  "I think it's a mistake, it's counterproductive, and it will not be effective in terms of achieving its original objective," Dr. Jeremy Wu, the department's national ombudsman, said of the calls for boycotts. Dr. Wu, who deals with workplace issues like diversity and equal opportunity, said that because a boycott could reduce Asian-American participation at the labs, "it certainly will hurt those who are fighting against racial profiling in the department right now."  Professor Sumida said the latest boycott resolution was approved by an overwhelming majority of about 250 members of the association who voted on it during a national meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz. The association has about 700 members in academic departments around the nation, he said. The membership, about three-quarters Asian-American, is concentrated in humanities departments, but also includes scholars in mathematics and the physical sciences.  Dr. Lee has been charged with illegally downloading nuclear secrets onto unsecure computers and portable tapes. He has been largely kept in an isolated cell while awaiting trial, although recently he has been allowed to travel in shackles to review evidence with his lawyers. Even though Dr. Lee has not been charged with espionage, an appellate court ruled that to free him would be to risk his disclosing the location of the tapes, seven of which are missing, to foreign governments.  The resolution asserts that Dr. Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was singled out for prosecution because of his race and treated with undue harshness during his incarceration.  Those claims were rejected in an interview yesterday by Myron Marlin, a Justice Department spokesman: "The indictment charges Mr. Lee unlawfully created computer tapes containing some of our most sensitive nuclear secrets, and now several of those tapes are missing. It's a serious charge and the proper place for this now is in the courts."  Whether the earlier boycott resolution has had an effect on the labs is hard to determine; Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the Los Alamos laboratory, said that the number of Asian scientists applying for post-doctoral positions there had dropped significantly even before the resolution in March, but that Asians and Asian-Americans were still applying for and being awarded positions.  Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang, chairman of the Department of Ethnic Studies and director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of California at Berkeley, says that the threat of withdrawing Asian-American talent from the labs is the best available way to make their concerns widely known.  "I fully intend to use the resolution to send a very, very strong message to our government that we do not appreciate the way that we are being treated as Americans," said Professor Wang, who helped introduce both resolutions.  "At the heart of it is that the Asian-Americans' civil rights are being violated."