#407 9/1 Monthly Meeting; NSF Rules Need Clarity; Getting Tech for US-China; AASF Symposium

In This Issue #407

·       2026/09/01 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

·       Rice University Experts Warn NSF's Research Security Rules Need Clarity

·       Getting Tech Right: U.S. China Policy for a New Era

·       AASF 2026 Frontier & Pioneer Symposium

·       News and Activities for the Communities

2026/09/01 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

The next APA Justice monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, starting at 1:55 pm ET.  Please note that this is a change from the first Monday of each month due to Labor Day being a federal holiday.

In addition to updates from:

·       Judith Teruya, Executive Director, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC)

·       Joanna YangQing Derman, Program Director, Advancing Justice | AAJC

·       Gisela Perez KusGisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director, Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF)

We are honored to welcome the following distinguished speakers:

·       Rebecca Keiser, Acting Chief of Staff and Chief of Research Security Strategy and Policy, National Science Foundation (NSF)

·       Sudip Parikh, Chief Executive Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Executive Publisher, Science Journals

·       Catherine “Cate” Johnson, Deputy Vice President for Government Relations and Public Policy, Association of American Universities (AAU)

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 - Vincent Wang 王文奎 and Jeremy Wu 胡善庆 - or send a message to contact@apajustice.org.  

DOJ Ruling Adds a New Front to NSF's Policy Upheaval

According to Science on August 20, 2026, The Department of Justice's August 12 ruling — finding three long-running NSF diversity programs unconstitutional and ordering an end to $104 million in congressionally appropriated funding — adds another significant policy shift to an agency already reshaping its research security rules. Advocates, including mathematician Freeman Hrabowski and Representative Grace Meng, warn the ruling will undercut U.S. competitiveness in STEM talent development. Taken together with NSF's new research security rules restricting international collaboration, this ruling signals an agency navigating simultaneous pressure on two fronts — who it funds and with whom recipients may work — with implications likely to be felt across the research community, including AAPI scientists and institutions.

Rice University Experts Warn NSF's Research Security Rules Need Clarity

At APA Justice's August 2026 monthly meeting, Dr. Kenny Evans (Fellow in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, Rice University) and Dr. Tam Dao (Associate Vice President of Public Safety and Research Security, Rice University) offered a detailed, on-the-ground assessment of NSF's new research security policy — one that both praised the underlying concept of research security while sharply criticizing how NSF is implementing it.

The Core Argument: Right Idea, Wrong Approach

Kenny opened by framing research security as reasonable in principle — protecting research from misappropriation and foreign interference is a legitimate goal. His central critique is that NSF's new policy gets the approach wrong. Rather than being researcher-centered — helping scientists collaborate safely while staying in the U.S. — Kenny argued the policy mirrors the Department of War's blanket securitization model, treating fundamental science broadly as a security risk rather than addressing specific, evidenced threats.

Kenny identified three core problems with NSF's approach:

·       No clarity on how it interacts with existing frameworks. NSPM-33 and the CHIPS and Science Act exempt universities with under $50 million in research funding from certain compliance requirements — an exemption notably absent from NSF's new guidance, potentially expanding the number of covered institutions from roughly 180 to as many as 1,800.

·       The blanket approach itself. Treating all science as inherently a security risk is, in Kenny's view, fundamentally the wrong framework.

·       No demonstrated evidence of effectiveness. Kenny said there is no clear evidence these policies are working, improving safety, or responding to a sufficient volume of actual research security incidents to justify restrictions this broad.

A Policy Landscape Shaped by Leadership Vacuum

Kenny connected NSF's approach to the leadership instability — NSF has lacked a Senate-confirmed director since early in the administration, which he said has left a vacuum allowing greater White House control over internal NSF operations, including award reviews and alignment with OMB's uniform guidance.

He also drew a direct line to the OMB rule covered in our recent issues, noting that OMB's proposal extends the logic of the Wolf Amendment (which restricts bilateral U.S.-China activities via OSTP and NASA, notably keeping China off the International Space Station) to nearly all federally funded science and a much broader set of countries. (Note: About 88-95% of the 497,000 total comments submitted to the OMB rule change were reportedly opposed, underscoring the scale of concern across the research community.)

Rice's Operational Reality: Ambiguity Everywhere

Dr. Tam Dao followed with a practical account of how Rice University is actually interpreting NSF's Dear Colleague Letter — and flagged that much of its language remains operationally undefined, leaving universities to guess at compliance:

·       Scope of "collaboration" is unclear: Does the restricted-entity ban apply only to the specific NSF-funded grant, or extend to a researcher's other, non-NSF funding and activities?

·       Full severance vs. grant-specific restriction: NSF says it will follow the Department of War's approach, which reportedly requires researchers to fully cut ties with restricted entities before receiving funding — raising the question of whether NSF intends the same complete severance, rather than a narrower restriction tied only to the funded project.

·       No clarity on retrospective review: DOW reportedly reviews researchers' past collaborations going back 4–5 years and allows explanations or mitigation of flagged relationships. NSF's letter does not address whether it will do the same, and Tam's own reading is that such explanations likely would not be considered sufficient under NSF's approach.

·       Inconsistent restricted-entity lists across agencies: NSF reportedly maintains around 12 separate restricted-entity lists that do not fully align with those used by DOE, NIH, ARPA-H, or other agencies — creating significant confusion for researchers who hold multiple federal grants.

·       Undefined "research support": It remains unclear whether something as informal as hosting a visiting student or having a lab conversation with someone from a restricted entity would count as prohibited support, even if that person isn't formally part of the NSF-funded project.

Tam also raised a broader concern about lost flexibility: many valuable collaborations are low-risk but high-benefit — for instance, accessing specialized technical expertise unavailable domestically — and the new rules eliminate researchers' ability to make individualized, evidence-based risk/benefit judgments, even in cases where a collaboration would clearly benefit the U.S. more than the foreign partner.

Tam said Rice's near-term priority is awareness and education. The university is proactively informing faculty — particularly those with long-standing, deeply personal international collaborations built over decades — that changes take effect in October, and has begun the complex work of helping them audit existing collaborations, materials purchases, and international relationships against the various restricted-entity lists.

Why This Matters for the APA Community

Kenny and Tam's presentation offers a valuable, concrete complement to the policy-level coverage APA Justice has provided on NSF's China collaboration ban and the OMB grantmaking rule — showing how the ambiguity in these policies translates into real compliance burdens and uncertainty for researchers and institutions, including the many scientists of Chinese and Asian descent whose international collaborations are most directly affected. Rice's experience may be broadly instructive for how other universities are — or should be — approaching this transition ahead of the effective date.

A summary of the August 2026 APA Justice monthly meeting summary is being prepared at this time.

Getting Tech Right: U.S. China Policy for a New Era

WHAT: Getting Tech Right: U.S. China Policy for a New EraWHEN: September 11, 2026, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm ETWHERE: In-Person Event: 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001HOST: Johns Hopkins SAIS Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF)

DESCRIPTION:  This is an in-person event convening experts and leaders in the private and public sectors to examine the full landscape of U.S.-China technological relations — with a focus on AI, EVs, and biotech, among other technologies.

The forum will consider where technology ties with China pose genuine security risks and where such connections might advance American prosperity, peace, and stability. One goal of the conference is to understand how China’s technology ecosystem actually works, including the role of government and private business. Based on this more granular and accurate foundation, participants will assess where and how the two countries can connect securely amid low trust. Can the American and Chinese tech stacks be secure and interoperable without unacceptable vulnerabilities? Finally, how are both societies navigating the shared sense of precarity that rapid technological change is producing? What common guardrails and approaches to AI safety and governance are needed?

REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/4xfZPUO

AASF 2026 Frontier & Pioneer Symposium

The Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), in partnership with Stanford University's Asian American Research Center, convened its 2026 Frontier & Pioneer Symposium from August 7–9 at Stanford — a three-day gathering that drew over 2,000 registrants and nearly 90 speakers, moderators, and session leaders, marking AASF's fifth anniversary and third annual symposium. It honored scientific pioneers amid a turbulent year for science and research.

Three-Day Program

The program opened August 7 with the Frontier Symposium, continued August 8 with the Pioneer Symposium & Ceremony, and closed August 9 with a Policy Forum held in partnership with the Hoover Institution's program on the U.S., China, and the World. Featured speakers included Nobel laureates Steven Chu 朱棣文, Syukuro Manabe, Randy W. Schekman, Samuel C. C. Ting 丁肇中, and Carl Wieman; Fields Medalist Terence Tao 陶哲轩; AI pioneers Jeff Dean and Fei-Fei Li 李飞飞; National Academy of Engineering President Tsu-Jae King Liu 劉金智潔; former NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan; and former OMB Deputy Director Nani A. Coloretti, among many others from academia, industry, and government.

Honoring Pioneers, Past and Present

AASF presented the 2026 Asian American Pioneer Medal to five honorees: Dr. Louise T. Chow 周芷, for discovering RNA splicing; Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany (posthumous), for pioneering fiber optics; Dr. Syukuro Manabe, for transforming climate science; Professor Terence Tao 陶哲轩, for advances spanning prime-number theory to compressed sensing; and Professor Samuel C. C. Ting 丁肇中, for discovering the J/ψ particle and revealing the charm quark.

The Asian American Justice Medal went to two trailblazers, both honored posthumously: Senator Hiram Fong 鄺友良, first Chinese American and first Asian American United States Senator, and Larry Itliong, honored for his labor rights activism.

Science at the Frontier

Sessions spanned artificial intelligence, quantum computing, energy, and the life sciences. Louise T. Chow 周芷 revisited her discovery of RNA splicing and its lasting impact on gene expression research. Steven Chu 朱棣文 discussed progress and unresolved challenges in battery storage, solar power, and climate. Yi Cui 崔屹, the symposium's Program Co-Chair, highlighted advances in silicon-anode batteries and grid-scale storage. Jeff Dean, in his first public appearance since leaving Google after 27 years, discussed AI's growing role in accelerating scientific discovery. Fei-Fei Li 李飞飞 explored AI's evolution toward spatial and physical intelligence, while urging the audience to preserve human agency as a design principle. Terence Tao 陶哲轩 examined how AI is reshaping mathematical research, and Samuel C. C. Ting 丁肇中 reflected on five decades of experimental physics, from the J/ψ discovery to his ongoing search for dark matter aboard the International Space Station.

Research and Mentorship Roundtables held over lunch on August 7 and 8 gave students and early-career researchers direct access to leading scientists and AASF Fellows in smaller, cross-generational settings.

A Policy Forum Confronting the Moment

The symposium's third day turned directly to the political headwinds facing American science, from the OMB grantmaking rule to NSF's leadership upheaval and the broader research "brain drain."

The Policy Forum was jointly organized by the Hoover Institution and AASF. The co-chairs of the forum were Glenn Tiffert, Distinguished Research Fellow & Co-Chair of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution, and Gisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director, Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF).  Dr. Karen Korematsu, daughter of the Late Civil Rights Icon Fred T. Korematsu, and Founder and President of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, delivered the opening keynote.

The Policy Forum examined federal research funding, civil rights and science, U.S.-China competition, and public service leadership, featuring Sethuraman Panchanathan; Nani A. Coloretti; Reps. Ted Lieu and Sam Liccardo; former Rep. Mike Honda; Arun Majumdar, Inaugural Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University; Steven Chu 朱棣文; Margaret (Maggie) Lewis, Professor, Seton Hall Law School; Gang Chen 陈刚, Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, MIT; Keith Yamamoto, Vice Chancellor for Science Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Francisco; Jason Liang, Trial Lawyer and Founding Partner, Liang Ly LLP; and Graham Webster, Editor-in-Chief of the DigiChina Project, Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Coming at a moment when we have reported extensively on threats to the research enterprise — from the OMB rule's restrictions on international collaboration to reports of prominent scientists departing U.S. institutions for opportunities abroad — this symposium offered a striking counter-narrative: a celebration of Asian American scientific achievement at the highest levels, convened by the same community organizations, including AASF fellow Peter Michelson's network, that have been most vocal in defending the research ecosystem this year. The gathering's scale and caliber of honorees underscore what the Asian Pacific American community stands to lose if current funding and immigration pressures continue to drive talent away.

News and Activities for the Communities

1. APA Justice Community Calendar

Upcoming Events:

2026/08/26 C100: An Advice and Networking Event (Technology)

2026/09/01 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

2026/09/03 C100: Recollections, Pioneers and Heroes - Hao Jiang Tian

2026/09/11 Getting Tech Right: U.S. China Policy for a New EraVisit https://bit.ly/3XD61qV for event details.

# # # 

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 APA Justice website at www.apajusticetaskforce.org. We value your feedback. Please send your comments to contact@apajustice.org.