Message Condemning Anti-Asian Hate Crimes and Bias
March 17, 2021
Dear WCL Community,
We Reject Yesterday’s Atlanta Massacre and the Rise in Hate Crimes Targeting Individuals of Asian Descent
In light of yesterday evening’s devastating shooting of eight people in the Atlanta area, six of them Asian or of Asian descent, we write to deplore all such violence and to acknowledge and condemn the rise in hate crimes and hateful language directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six months into the pandemic, there had been more than 2500 explicitly COVID-related anti-Asian hate incidents, and according to Stop AAPI Hate, there have been nearly 3,800 reports of hate incidents targeting Asian-Americans in the last year. These estimates are almost certainly misleadingly low, as most anti-Asian hate crimes go undisclosed.
Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian hate. The harassment, violence, and discrimination targeting Asians and Asian Americans during the pandemic again highlight the physical and emotional havoc that unfounded stereotypes wreak on minoritized communities. We encourage you to view the video resources at the Immigrant History Initiative to familiarize yourself with how people of Asian descent have been targeted throughout U.S. history, up through today.
We stand in solidarity with the Asian and Asian American members of the WCL community and reject yesterday’s shooting, other incidents of racist violence, and the use of racist, derogatory, and xenophobic rhetoric targeting people of Asian descent both inside and outside the WCL community.
As we stated in response to the Georgetown incident last week, and we reaffirm today, our anti-racist work cannot and will not begin and end with the racial justice uprising of Summer 2020. Over the past year, we have taken steps to address bias at WCL as a central part of our Commitment to Anti-racism. Our Anti-bias Task Force and Faculty Diversity Committee are currently hosting roundtables on a proposed Anti-bias policy at WCL. We encourage students to sign up to participate in one of these roundtables or to provide feedback through our online survey.
Racism and bias erode physical health, mental health, sense of belonging, academic performance, and engagement. Please visit the American University’s Counseling Center’s Confronting Injustice site for resources on dealing with racial trauma. You may also schedule a virtual appointment at the AU Student Counseling Center, and report incidents of discrimination and bias to AU’s Office of Equity and Title IX at equity@american.edu or WCL’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Affinity Relations at diversity@wcl.american.edu.
Sincerely,
Robert Dinerstein, Acting Dean and Professor of Law
Susan Carle, Vice Dean
Lisa Taylor, Assistant Dean of Diversity, Inclusion and Affinity Relations
Amanda Leiter, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs
Ann Chernicoff, Senior Assistant Dean
David Jaffe, Associate Dean for Student Affairs