#329 5/5 Meeting; William Tong; Hanfan Lin; China Initiative; Harvard Push Back; Uprising +

In This Issue #329

·        2025/05/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

·        William Tong: Connecticut Attorney General

·        Haifan Lin: President of Federation of Asian Professor Associations

·        Long Shadow of the "China Initiative"

·        University Leaders Stand Up to Trump Administration Threats

·        NYT Opinion: "America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal"

·        News and Activities for the Communities

2025/05/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

The next APA Justice monthly meeting will be held via Zoom on Monday, May 5, 2025, starting at 1:55 pm ET.

In addition to updates by Judith Teruya, Executive Director, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Joanna YangQing Derman, Program Director, Advancing Justice | AAJC, and Gisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director, Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), invited speakers are:

·        William Tong 湯偉麟, Attorney General, State of Connecticut

·        Robert L. Santos, Former Director, U.S. Census Bureau; Former President, American Statistical Association

·        Haifan Lin 林海帆, President, Federation of Asian Professor Associations (FAPA); Professor, Yale University

·        Gee-Kung Chang 張繼昆, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

The virtual monthly meeting is by invitation only. It is closed to the press. If you wish to join, either one time or for future meetings, please contact one of the co-organizers of APA Justice - Steven Pei 白先慎, Vincent Wang 王文奎, and Jeremy Wu 胡善庆 - or send a message to contact@apajustice.org.

William Tong: Connecticut Attorney General

William Tong 湯偉麟 is the 25th Attorney General (AG) to serve Connecticut since the office was established by the state constitution in 1897. He first took office in 2019 and is currently serving his second term.  Born in Hartford, he is the first Asian American elected to any state office in Connecticut history, and the first Chinese American to be elected Attorney General nationwide.  AG Tong was elected to serve as the President-elect of the National Association of Attorneys General.  The vote was unanimous.  His term begins in 2026.AG Tong has accepted our invitation to speak at the APA Justice monthly meeting on May 5, 2025.Since taking office in 2019, he has been a leading voice in defending civil rights and challenging federal overreach. He and fellow state attorneys general have filed at least eight lawsuits against the Trump administration, including efforts to oppose attempts to end birthright citizenship, prevent the freezing of federal funds critical to states, and overturn the planned $11 billion cut in the federal public health grants. AG Tong's advocacy underscores his commitment to upholding constitutional protections and ensuring equitable treatment for all communities.​

·        2025/04/02 CTpost: Connecticut sues Trump administration, Kennedy over health cuts, $120 million to state at risk

·        2025/03/06 Attorney General Tong Secures Court Order Blocking Trump Administration from Freezing Federal Funds

·        2024/12/29 NBC News: 'The first to sue': Opposing Trump's desire to end birthright citizenship is personal for this attorney general

Haifan Lin: President of Federation of Asian Professor Associations

Dr. Haifan Lin 林海帆, President of the Federation of Asian Professor Associations (FAPA), is an invited speaker at the APA Justice monthly meeting on May 5, 2025.FAPA is a national coalition dedicated to uniting Asian and Asian American faculty across U.S. institutions. Established in 2024, FAPA aims to foster collaboration, amplify advocacy, and promote shared initiatives among Asian faculty organizations nationwide. Its mission encompasses advancing academic freedom, equity, and representation, particularly in response to challenges such as racial profiling and underrepresentation in leadership roles.Dr. Lin is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Cell Biology at Yale University and the founding director of the Yale Stem Cell Center. Renowned for his pioneering work in stem cell biology, Dr. Lin is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

On April 12, 2025, FAPA issued a public statement on the case of Indiana University Professor Xiaofeng Wang 王晓峰 and sent an open letter to Dr. Pamela Whitten, President of Indiana University, to condemn the abrupt dismissal of Dr. Wang, citing a lack of due process and growing racial profiling of Chinese American scientists. FAPA urges the university to reverse the decision, warning that such actions undermine academic freedom and set a dangerous precedent.

Long Shadow of the "China Initiative"

On April 25, 2025, the Committee of 100 annual conference will kick off with a session on "The Evolving National Security Landscape and Its Impact on Civil Rights."  This panel will examine what has replaced the China Initiative, who is being targeted now, and what comes next. Panelists will explore the broader implications of national security-driven discrimination, including the erosion of due process rights, racial profiling in espionage cases, and restrictions on cross-border collaboration. They will also discuss strategies for resisting policies that reinforce systemic inequality and advocate for civil liberties in an era of rising geopolitical tensions.

Speakers for the panel are:

·        Gang Chen 陈刚, Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

·        Seth DuCharme, Chair, National Government Enforcement & Investigations Practice, Bracewell LLP; Former United States Attorney

·        Gary Locke 骆家辉, Former U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China

·        Brian Sun 孙自华, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright US 

1. The Case of Dr. Chee-Kung Wang

Dr. Gee-Kung Chang 張繼昆, currently a retired professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, was indicted in 2021 for 10 counts of visa and wire fraud. Prosecutors claimed he facilitated a scheme that brought Chinese nationals to the U. S. on J-1 visiting scholar visa to work at a private telecommunications firm instead of at the University. In April 2025, all charges were dismissed at the pretrial stage due to lack of evidence and not meeting fundamental principles of law. His case is widely seen as another example of racial profiling and prosecutorial overreach under now-defunct "China Initiative." He was represented by attorneys Robert Fisher and Brian Kelly, who also defended MIT Professor Gang Chen in a separate case under "China Initiative." Dr. Gee-Kung Chang and Mr. Robert Fisher will speak at the APA Justice monthly meeting on May 5, 2025.

2. China Initiative 2.0? The Case of Dr. Xiaofeng Wang 王晓峰

On March 28, 2025, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security executed search warrants at Indiana University (IU) Professor Xiaofeng Wang's 王晓峰 residences in Bloomington and Carmel, Indiana. Simultaneously, IU terminated Professor Wang's employment via email without any formal reason. His wife, Nianli Ma, also affiliated with IU, was dismissed four days earlier without explanation.  At the April 14, 2025 State of Play Town Hall, Nianli Ma shared her family's profound sense of betrayal and emotional distress over IU's unexplained dismissals, vowing to fight for justice and support the broader research community.On April 1, 2025, Stanford University legal scholar Riana Pfefferkorn filed a motion (1:25-mc-00022) to unseal the warrants, emphasizing the public's right to transparency.  The U.S. Attorney's Office has argued to keep them sealed.Professor Wang's termination reportedly involved an undisclosed research grant from China in 2017-2018.  Joining the protest on April 17, 2025, Day of Action for Higher Ed, IU computer science chair Yuzhen Ye said Professor Wang was not even aware of the grant when university officials asked him about it.  “So apparently a researcher in China applied for this grant without his knowledge," she said "So (Wang) explained and also he provided a supporting documentation to IU.  I truly believe this really could have unfolded in a very different way if IU administration had chosen to trust its own faculty or give them a fair chance to respond,” Professor Ye said.

Read the continuing development of Professor Wang's case: https://bit.ly/42tbPVR

3. The Unsolved Suicide of Dr. Nongjian Tao

According to an exclusive report by the South China Morning Post on April 14, 2025, Nongjian Tao 陶农建, a renowned Chinese American scientist and pioneer in nanotechnology, was found dead in March 2020 outside a parking garage at Arizona State University (ASU), where he led the Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors. A police report later concluded that Tao died by suicide amid significant "work-related stress." His sudden death at age 57 shocked colleagues, as he had been actively engaged in professional activities shortly before his passing. Tao was celebrated for his invention of the scanning tunneling microscopy break junction technique, which advanced the study of single molecules and contributed to the field of nanoscience. He also founded two biotech startups and secured over $10 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.Stuart Lindsay, a Regents Professor at ASU and Professor Tao’s PhD adviser in the 1980s, called him “the brightest and hardest working student” he had ever had.In 2021, the American Chemical Society published the first-ever special issue of ACS Sensors dedicated to the memory of Professor Tao, recognizing him as "a person that made an incredible impact on our lives and those of many others."  He was named an honorary fellow by the Chinese Chemical Society in 2012.  In April 2020, The obituary in Nature Nanotechnology honors Professor Tao (1963–2020) as a pioneering nanoscientist.

Professor Tao's death occurred during the era of the "China Initiative," which aimed to counter alleged economic espionage but shifted to racial profiling against Chinese researchers. Five years later, questions about Professor Tao’s death remain – including whether some of that stress was the result of possible inquiries by NIH.The cause of Professor Tao’s death may never be known.

University Leaders Stand Up to Trump Administration Threats

According to Harvard Crimson on April 22, 2025, Harvard University President Alan Garber joined over 180 university leaders (which has since grown to more than 220) in signing a public statement denouncing government overreach and political interference in higher education. Issued by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the statement calls for constructive engagement with the White House while opposing undue intrusion on campuses. It follows Harvard’s lawsuit challenging a $2.2 billion funding cut and marks the first time the university has directly co-led opposition to the Trump administration. The statement also criticized threats of deportation, emphasizing the importance of academic freedom and open inquiry.On April 21, 2025, Harvard filed a lawsuit to halt a federal freeze on more than $2.2 billion in grants: President and Fellows of Harvard College v. US Department of Health and Human Services (1:25-cv-11048)On April 14, 2025, Harvard publicly rejected a series of sweeping demands from the Trump administration, which included overhauling its admissions, hiring, and diversity programs, and submitting to federal oversight.  “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the Harvard President Garber wrote.

On April 18, 2025, the New York Times reported that some administration officials claimed the initial letter on April 11 was sent in error.   According to the Washington Post on April 19, 2025, Harvard pushed back on the assertion that the letter was sent in error, pointing out that the Trump administration had “doubled down” on its threats. After Harvard refused to comply with the letter’s demands, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university without proof of violatons and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.

NYT Opinion: "America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal"

In an essay published by the New York Times on April 17, 2025, Columnist David Brooks opined that "What's Happening Is Not Normal.  America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal." According to the opinion, Trumpism is not normal politics — it is a systematic, multifront assault on the foundational institutions of modern civilization. As the opinion explains, "Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness," and it actively seeks to dismantle the safeguards that make society humane and just — from universities and law firms to NATO and the rule of law. The usual compartmentalized responses have failed; treating these attacks as separate issues is a "disastrous strategy" that allows Trumpism to divide and conquer. This moment demands recognition that what’s at stake is not a partisan struggle, but “an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life.”What is urgently needed is not passive defense, but an “abnormal uprising” — a coordinated, national civic movement that unites all sectors of society: law, academia, science, media, business, and civil service. Drawing from historic examples in Why Civil Resistance Works, such movements start small but grow through strategic nonviolence — lawsuits, boycotts, mass rallies — eventually shifting the momentum and narrative. As the opinion argues, “Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he is confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.” This is a call not just to resist, but to reform, heal, and rebuild.

“We have nothing to lose but our chains,” the opinion concludes.Read the New York Times opinion by David Brooks: https://bit.ly/4ivpDUL

News and Activities for the Communities

1. APA Justice Community Calendar

2025/04/24-26 Committee of 100 Annual Conference and Gala2025/04/24 CHINA Town Hall: The First 100 Days: President Trump's China Policy2025/04/24 Federal Employees: Know your Legal Rights2025/04/24 Stop AAPI Hate Community Town Hall - Trump’s Travel Ban: How to Prepare and Push Back2025/04/28 California AANHPI Advocacy Day2025/04/30 Beyond the China Initiative: Civil Rights, National Security, and the Future of AAPI Communities2025/05/04 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2025/05/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting2025/05/06 Asian American Careers - How to Build Your Personal Network, including Through Strategic Allies2025/05/12-14 APAICS Annual Summit and GalaVisit https://bit.ly/3XD61qV for event details.  

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APA Justice Task Force is a non-partisan platform to build a sustainable ecosystem that addresses racial profiling concerns and to facilitate, inform, and advocate on selected issues related to justice and fairness for the Asian Pacific American community.  For more information, please refer to the new APA Justice website under development at www.apajusticetaskforce.org. We value your feedback. Please send your comments to contact@apajustice.org.