5/31/00 New York Times: "Asian-American Scholars Urge Scientists to Boycott U.S. Labs,"
    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 counter productive, 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."

5/2/01 Reuters: "U.S. Chinese-American Lawmaker Delayed at Agency,"
    Rep. David Wu, the first Chinese-American in the U.S. House of Representatives, said he was stopped by security guards at the Energy Department this week and asked repeatedly if he was an American citizen, despite showing his congressional identification card.
    ``The ultimate irony is that I went to the Department of Energy two days ago to give a talk, at their request, about the progress of Asian-Americans in America,'' the Oregon Democrat said in a speech on Friday on the floor of the House.
    The Taiwanese-born Wu, 46, was elected to Congress in 1998.   He sent a letter of complaint to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. 
    The Energy Department (DOE) said the guards were following standard procedure when they inquired about Wu's citizenship during his visit on Wednesday.
    Wu had gone to the DOE to participate in an Asian-Pacific Island heritage month event. He said his staff explained to the guards that he was a member of Congress and an invited guest. But only after his staff asked to speak to a supervisor was he finally escorted to the event, he said.
    ``It was a mix-up,'' DOE spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said. ''We're very sorry about the delay, but we do have certain security procedures that guards have to follow, and we will continue to do so.''  Lopatto said Wu waited about 15 minutes before a DOE escort arrived to meet him.
    In a meeting with Wu on Friday, Abraham apologized and said he would review security procedures at the DOE, ABC News reported.
    In a statement released on Friday, Wu raised concerns about ''racial profiling'' at the department.  ``Many of the DOE's top scientists are Americans of Asian descent. Any evidence of racism or racial profiling at DOE will have serious effects on the United States and our national security,'' the statement said.
    The DOE has come under fire from some Asian-American advocacy groups because of its treatment of former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen.  Lee was fired from the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in March 1999 amid spy allegations. Activists charged that Lee was portrayed as a spy for China because of his race.  Lee, 60, spent nine months in solitary confinement and was released with an apology from a federal judge who blasted the U.S. government for ``embarrassing our entire nation'' with spying allegations that were never proven. He pleaded guilty to one count of downloading nuclear weapons design secrets to a non-secure computer. The government dropped the remaining charges.