Departmental Statement on Recent Remarks

Recently, a professor in the Penn Law School gave an interview in which she recycled various tired and toxic tropes that have historically justified violence and exclusion from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the recent spate of anti-Asian hate generated by the racialization of the Covid pandemic.

As Dean Ruger of the Law School has noted, even if speech is protected, we must not ignore the real harms that it can cause. In that spirit, we add our voice to the denunciation of this professor’s reckless targeting of historically vulnerable populations and reaffirm our deep appreciation of the contributions which Asians and Asian-Americans have made to Penn, the U.S., and the world.