Committee of Concerned Scientists

An international non-profit organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars dedicated to protecting the human rights and scientific freedom of our colleagues around the world.

An independent non-profit organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars dedicated to protecting the human rights and scientific freedom of our colleagues around the world.
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Information
    • History
    • Leadership
  • CCS Active Case Updates
  • Human Rights Resources
    • Human Rights Orgs
    • General HR Res
    • US Govt Agencies
  • Donations

U.S. Government Profiling Ethnic Chinese Scientists

July 1, 2019

Numerous ethnic Chinese scientists that work for U.S. government agencies, American colleges and universities and private industry have been profiled. Many are investigated, lose their jobs, their labs, their staffs, are arrested, tried and most are found “not guilty.” However, the damage is done by that time. More recently, the National Institutes of Health have sent questionnaires asking colleges to look at their staffs to see if there may be any suspicious behavior. Some of the scientists have been forced to return to China due to the bad publicity they received in the United States, many were not re-instated to their former jobs, and some were not reinstated to the agency where they were initially employed. Several lost contracts, grants, their research labs, the staffs that worked for them. Many had to expend significant amounts to defend themselves in court proceedings. And some, even after being exonerated had difficulty returning to earlier jobs despite the scoldings by many judges to prosecutors/investigative agencies for bringing such cases to court in the first place. The scientists are publicly humiliated and these proceedings have severe affects on their lives and the lives of their family members.

CCS finds these actions abhorrent and have written the President of the United States, the Attorney General and the leaders of both Houses of Congress requesting such behavior cease.

June 4, 2019

Donald Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

Dear President Trump:

The Committee of Concerned Scientists (“CCS”) is an independent organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars devoted to the protection and advancement of human rights and scientific freedom for colleagues all over the world. For almost 50 years CCS has been helping persecuted scholars overcome injustice and return to their academic work.

Today CCS is writing to express its concern about the profiling of ethnic Chinese scientists by the U.S. government which includes American citizens
and U.S. permanent residents.

This phenomenon is not new. In 1999, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American scientist, working on simulations of nuclear explosions at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was indicted for revealing secrets to China and spent 9 months in a U.S. federal prison. He was subsequently acquitted by Judge James Parker who publicly apologized in the New York Times for allowing the case to go to trial. Wen Ho Lee sued the federal government and received $1.6M in compensation for defamation.

In 2014, Xiamen (Sherry) Chen, a hydrologist working for the National Weather Service (“NWS”), was charged with illegally downloading data about national infrastructure and falsely telling federal agents that she had last seen a Chinese official in 2011, not 2012 when the meeting had actually occurred. Six months later she was acquitted of all charges. In 2018, the Chief Administrative Judge Michele Schroeder ordered the U.S. Department of Commerce, that oversees the NWS, to reinstate Chen’s employment. In January 2019, Sherry Chen filed a civil lawsuit against the U.S. government.

In 2015, Xiaoxing Xi, professor and former Chair of the Physics Department of Temple University, was arrested and charged with selling sensitive technology to China. After a few leading physicists in the field provided affidavits that schematics of the device found in Xi’s possession were of a pocket heater, not of the restricted technology, the Department of Justice dropped all charges. In 2017, Xi filed a lawsuit against federal government for manufacturing the case against him and violating his constitutional rights.

The above-mentioned examples have been dwarfed by the government campaign that began in the spring of 2019 with the warning issued to U.S. medical centers on behalf of the National Institutes of Health. The assertion of “systematic efforts by foreign nations to steal intellectual property” has triggered massive investigation of ethnic Chinese faculty throughout the country. It involves searches of their email accounts, correspondence and phone calls, as well as video surveillance. As a result of this campaign, positions (including tenured ones) of some prominent Chinese-American scientists have been terminated without due process, their students and laboratories have been left in limbo, with some being closed and the remaining staff being laid off.

The Committee of Concerned Scientists believes that ethnic profiling and indiscriminate investigations of Chinese scientists has no place in our country. Besides damaging the image of the United States, it is also damaging to our national security by inflicting irreparable harm on some of our best scientists and making them think about leaving the country, and one was actually forced to leave, despite the fact that the Judge criticized the prosecutor and government’s handling of the situation.

The CCS calls upon the U.S. government to immediately stop the campaign of intimidation of ethnic Chinese scientists and make a public statement assuring them that they will be treated as equal valuable members of the American society.

Sincerely,
Joel L. Lebowitz, Paul H. Plotz, Walter Reich, Eugene M. Chudnovsky, Alexander Greer
Co-Chairs, Committee of Concerned Scientists

Cc:
William P. Barr, Esq.
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

Steny H. Hoyer
Majority Leader of the House of Representatives
U.S. House of Representatives
1705 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Kevin McCarthy
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives
U.S. House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate
U.S. Senate
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Chuck Schumer
Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate
U.S. Senate
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Filed Under: United States Tagged With: arrested, profiling, Scientists

Who We Are

Co-chairs

Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University

Paul H. Plotz, M.D., Washington, DC

Walter Reich, George Washington University

Eugene Chudnovsky, Lehman College

Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College

Vice-chairs

Astronomy – Arno Penzias, New Enterprises Associates*

Biology – Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University

Chemistry – Zafra Lerman, MIMSAD Inc.

Computer Science – Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University

Computer Science – Jack Minker, University of Maryland, College Park

Engineering – Philip Sarachik, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering

Mathematics – Simon Levin, Princeton University

Medical Sciences – J. Joseph Blum, Duke University

Honorary Board Members

Nancy Andrews, Duke University

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*

Alan J. Bard, University of Texas

Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook

Raoul Bott (deceased), Harvard University

Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley

Stanley Deser, Brandeis University

Edward Gerjuoy, University of Pittsburg

David Gross, (2004 Nobel Prize in Physics), Kavil Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara*

Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University

Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*

James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Peter Lax, New York University

Louis Nirenberg, New York University

Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*

Honorary Board Members

John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*

Stuart Rice, University of Chicago

Sir Richard J. Roberts, (1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine), New England Biolabs*

Myriam Sarachick, City College of New York

Harold Scheraga, Cornell University

Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University

Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University

Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin*

Myrna Weissman, Columbia University

Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*

* Nobel laureate

Search Site

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages
Filter by Categories
Additional Information
Angola
Annual Reports
Australia
Bahrain
Belarus
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Cameroon
CCS Board
CCS Cases
Chile
China
Colombia
Cuba
Egypt
Ethiopia
France
Germany
Good News
Greece
Highlights
History
Human Rights Resources
India
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Italy
Malaysia
Morocco
North America Issues
Pakistan
Pakistan
Palestinian Territories
Peru
Petitions
Poland
Press
Previous Highlights
Prominent Cases
Related Articles
Reports
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Spain
Sudan
Swaziland
Syria
Thailand
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United Nations
United States
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam

View Results in New Window...

Browse by Country

Archives

Join Us

Become a member of our humanitarian enterprise.

Sign up

Support CCS

Remember to register with AmazonSmiles as a donor to the Committee of Concerned Scientists. Then anytime you shop there CCS will receive a donation from Amazon. Since people spend a lot during this time of year it can benefit CCS greatly if you remember to do this. There is no additional cost to you.

FURTHER DIRECTIONS

Translate This Page

Click on the flags or use the menu below for a translation of this page.

[google-translator]

Press Enter to Search

Like us on Facebook

Committee of Concerned Scientists

c/o Alexandra R. Bender, Executive Director
P.O. Box 4525
Easton, PA 18043
Phone: (570) 994-2093
abender@concernedscientists.org

Copyright © 2023 • Concerned Sci Child Theme on Genesis Framework • WordPress • Log in