Chen declined an interview request from MIT Expertise Assessment however mentioned by means of her lawyer that she’s “at the moment considering by means of [her] subsequent steps.” However her good friend Gang Chen, an MIT scientist who has additionally been wrongfully accused of spying for China (and isn’t associated to Sherry Chen), tells us he feels her ache.
“Regardless of the victory, it is very important keep in mind that this was a decade of Sherry’s life,” Gang Chen says. “I mirror on the years that so many have misplaced, together with myself, and the trauma that lingers on for these straight impacted and for his or her households. Victories, resembling this, alone don’t totally compensate for what has been misplaced.”
Secondly, Sherry Chen’s case is an anomaly—in {that a} broad sample of misconduct by her accusers was confirmed definitively. One of many largest criticisms of the China Initiative is that legislation enforcement casts doubt on actions that sure ethnic teams have interaction in on daily basis, like touring again dwelling. It’s often laborious to show racial bias in court docket. However in Chen’s scenario, the Investigations and Risk Administration Service (ITMS), an inside safety unit on the Commerce Division that began investigating Chen in 2012, was discovered to be significantly blatant in its racial profiling practices.
A 2021 report from the Senate Commerce Committee revealed that ITMS “ran ethnic surnames by means of safe databases,” focused an worker “purely due to her ethnic Chinese language origin,” and “broadly focused departmental divisions with comparably excessive proportions of Asian-American workers.” This led to an inside investigation of ITMS, and the unit was shut down in September 2021.
Clearly, not all authorities malpractice is revealed in heavyweight Senate experiences, and far more is actually swept beneath the rug. “You hardly ever get a smoking gun resembling that, breaking open a case,” says Frank Wu, a lawyer, activist, and president of Queens School on the Metropolis College of New York. (Wu consulted on Chen’s case however by no means acted as her lawyer.)
And regardless that Chen received her settlement and the DOJ ended the China Initiative, that doesn’t imply the implicit bias that set in movement such discriminatory prosecutions has gone away. It could have simply turn into extra covert.
Lastly, Chen’s win doesn’t essentially imply others in her scenario may have a better time getting justice. Sure, Chen’s settlement was the primary of its sort for a wrongfully accused Chinese language-American scientist, and folks actually hope it’s going to set a precedent. However the actuality is probably going not that easy.
“I’ve not seen the settlement, however I totally count on that it’s worded to clarify that that is particular to this explicit case,” says Margaret Lewis, a professor of legislation at Seton Corridor College who focuses on legal justice and human rights. “I’m assured that the federal government was cautious to keep away from any indication that it was setting a broader precedent.” That will imply different students preventing their very own wrongful prosecution instances couldn’t simply level to Chen’s case and argue that the identical resolution ought to apply.
