The AAUP-NYU Chapter condemns anti-Asian violence in all its forms. We issue this statement in solidarity with Asian and Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) faculty, students, and staff in grief, fear and outrage. Here, we are responding in particular to the murderous attacks in Georgia on Asian working women, but also in general to the historic patterns of anti-Asian racism in the United States that have overtly asserted themselves in our extended pandemic moment. These recent shootings are one result of a year of heightened anti-Asian racism and xenophobia, which in universities such as ours has led to complicity in federal racist profiling policies like the Trump era China Initiative. We thus call on NYU to join efforts with peer institutions to StopAAPIHate with dozens of AAPI organizations, and with NYU’s own Brennan Center to add its voice in seeking to end the China Initiative as part of a broader anti-racist agenda and commitment.
Image credit: Milwaukee Teachers Education Association via Flickr (Creative Commons)
