CLE Credit:
New York: 1.5 Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias
New Jersey: 1.5 Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias
California: 1.5 Elimination of Bias
Pennsylvania: 1.0 Professional Responsibility
Connecticut: Available to Licensed Attorneys

This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit to all attorneys

Description:
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been more than 10,000 incidents of violence and hostility against Asian Americans nationwide.  But this is nothing new, for there is a long and little-known history of anti-Asian violence in this country -- from the lynching of 15 Chinese in Los Angeles in 1871 to the expulsion of all the South Asian residents of Bellingham, Washington in 1907 to five days of rioting and attacks against Filipino men in Watsonville, California in 1930.  More recently, in a suburb of Detroit in 1982, Vincent Chin, a 27-year old Chinese immigrant who was to be married the following week, was beaten to death with a baseball bat by two autoworkers.  And in 1981, in Galveston Bay, local fishermen brought in the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate Vietnamese fishermen, refugees who had resettled in the Gulf following the fall of Saigon.

Likewise, the recent rhetoric about the "China virus" and "Kung Flu" is not the first time Asian Americans have been targeted over purported health concerns.  In 1870, San Francisco passed two health ordinances that were enforced only against the "Chinese and Asiatics."  In 1900, amidst fears of the bubonic plague, San Francisco required "the inoculation of all Chinese residents" and quarantined Chinatown. The ordinances were not applied to members of any other groups.  

This program examines the history of anti-Asian violence and hostility through narration, reenactment of court proceedings, and historic photos.  Asian Americans did not hesitate to fight for their rights in the courts, and these cases raised issues that were -- and still are -- important to all Americans. 

Click Here to View Program Agenda & Faculty

Co-Sponsoring Organization: 
The Asian American Bar Association of New York
The Office for Diversity and Inclusion

Co-Sponsoring Committee
Asian Affairs,  Dih-Lin Wong, Chair
Civil Rights, Kevin Jason & Kathleen Rubenstein, Co-Chairs
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Robert Marchman and Matthew Morningstar, Co-Chairs
Legal History, Alan W. Borst, Jr., Chair