Frank WuFrank Wu is a Distinguished Professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, where he formerly served as chancellor and dean.OpinionOur Shared HistoryPeople are ignorant of history, even their own.October 24, 2019African-AmericanMy Failure to Call Out BiasI am compelled to confess my complicity in bias. As much as I might suspect that I have been affected by prejudice in my career, even among academics who pride themselves as enlightened, I know that I have failed to act when I could have, in the face of inappropriate decision-making.September 13, 2019Asian American Pacific IslanderAmerican Minorities and Our Foreign CousinsRacial nationalists, who equate ethnicity with belonging, can co-exist with each other. Their acceptance may be begrudging, but they can be sympathetic to one another’s sense of who should be where. They will avoid conflict if they stay in the appropriate place and don’t claim the same territory. It is those whose race and nationality do not correspond, or who are cosmopolitan, who threaten an order deemed naturalSeptember 3, 2019OpinionAcademic Bigotry is Back, Thanks to Amy WaxDr. Amy Laura Wax, who holds the Robert Mundheim chair at the University of Pennsylvania, recently gave a speech in Washington, D.C. She has made herself a celebrity among academic bigots.Using a term she coined “cultural distance nationalism,” she stated: “We are better off if our country is dominated numerically, demographically, politically, at least in fact if not formally, by people from the First World, from the West, than by people from countries that had failed to advance.”August 9, 2019MSIsA Diverse ShakespeareW.E.B. DuBois would be proud of an ongoing effort to “translate” all 38 plays by William Shakespeare into an English intelligible to contemporary patrons of the stage. “I sit with Shakespeare,” DuBois wrote, “and he winces not.” DuBois was like Shakespeare: he took in all the world offered. He assimilated experiences to himself, not vice versa.July 25, 2019OpinionVictory for Natural Black Hair Benefits All of UsCalifornia just became the first state to recognize by law that discrimination against natural hair can be discrimination on the basis of race. That was the result of years of advocacy. New York State just followed.July 12, 2019Asian American Pacific IslanderFitting In Doesn’t Fix DiscriminationI have been studying the internment of Japanese Americans ever since I have been a professor. Yet I have had the most important insight, personally as an Asian American albeit not Japanese originally, only recently. To explain why the mass incarceration during World War II of 120,000 individuals on the basis of heritage, two-thirds of them native-born citizens of this nation, was wrong requires pointing out that the people who are most offended about the violation of civil rights are those who subscribe in the ideals of the United States.June 27, 2019OpinionHow Do We Persuade People About Casual Racism and Sexism?As a teacher of advocacy, I wonder what is the most effective means of persuading people they should not engage in offensive speech and objectionable expression. I mean that sincerely, not rhetorically: what will prompt people to choose not to use racial slurs or sexist images, not because they felt coerced but from a change of heart? For me, the issue is not whether they possess the right to utter the word or display the picture — for I would not hesitate to support them against censorship. The issue is whether it is right to do so.June 18, 2019Opinion‘Discrimination’ and DiscriminationAt the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, discrimination is out in the open — and it’s fine. When you arrive, the sign above the lobby counter indicates that anybody named “Isabella” may enter without charge. I’d never seen anything like it.June 4, 2019OpinionWill Whites Be Stereotyped as Corrupt Because of Felicity Huffman?The recent bust in Boston of an organized, professionalized, high-stakes college admissions fraud operation reveals much more than the amoral conduct of the participants. The parents, who included actor Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives television fame and Oscar nominee, and William H. Macy, veteran of dozens of movies, were willing to pay into the millions of dollars for ringers to take standardized tests for their children or to gin up false evidence of athletic potential.March 14, 2019Previous PagePage 2 of 4Next Page