The launch of Fordham Law School’s Center on Asian Americans and the Law—taking place November 9—was featured in a Law360 article.
Fordham University School of Law is set to officially launch Wednesday a first-of-a-kind center in the U.S. focused on addressing legal issues faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including anti-Asian violence and barriers to employment and immigration.
The launch of the school’s Center on Asian Americans and the Law comes as more than 10,000 incidents of violence and hostility against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been reported since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. But such hostility is “nothing new,” according to the center, which notes on its site that a history of violence toward Asian Americans in the U.S. dates back to when they first immigrated to the country.
“Asian Americans have never hesitated, however, to fight for their legal rights, and they scored hard-fought victories in the courts while also suffering heart-breaking losses,” a page for the center on Fordham University’s website reads. “These cases raised issues that were — and still are — important to all Americans.”
The center states that while Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing racial and ethnic group in the U.S., their stories are still left out in classrooms. It said it hopes to change that.
The center’s missions are to educate students, lawyers and the general public on legal issues important to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and to pique interest in the legal issues by working with law firms, corporations, nonprofit organizations and the public.
Another mission is to establish a hub for research and study on legal issues affecting the community, including anti-Asian violence, affirmative action in education, the model minority myth, and the “Bamboo Ceiling” — or barriers faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — in employment, immigration and citizenship.
Some projects and programs planned for the center include reenactments of historic cases, lectures and panels, and the creation of a digital repository for primary research materials and an e-casebook.
The center will be co-directed by U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1978, and international law professor Thomas Lee.