Two tenured professors of Asian descent at New York University Grossman School of Medicine (NYUSOM) have been unjustly suspended by the university and stripped of proper due process protections in their termination proceedings, limiting their rights to fight this injustice. 

They are not alone. Across the United States, we are now seeing mass investigations, unjust prosecutions, and employment terminations of Asian American and immigrant professors, researchers, and scholars under the federal government’s “China Initiative,” leaving careers ruined and lives in shambles.

The Department of Justice’s “China Initiative” allegedly aims to root out economic espionage by the Chinese government, but in reality has initiated investigations of scientists, researchers, and scholars based merely on connections to China, which are often ancestral or professionally legitimate, rather than on actual evidence of espionage. These investigations have mostly impacted Asian American and immigrant academics who are treated with suspicion resulting in racial profiling across the country. 

Universities such as NYU have largely encouraged international research collaborations, including with universities in China. Suddenly, the rules have changed and the government is criminalizing past conduct that universities have actively encouraged.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, American Association of University Professors NYU Chapter (NYU-AAUP), and the Union for Graduate Employees at New York University (GSOC) are spearheading this petition to urge NYU President Andrew Hamilton to stop racial profiling Asian American and immigrant professors at NYU and protect their rights to due process.

We need your help. Take action today by signing the petition.