Winds of Freedom

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2021-09-13 17:00:18

We, a group of 177 Stanford faculty members from more than 40 departments, have sent the following open letter to the U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, requesting that he terminates the Department of Justice's China Initiative. The China Initiative was introduced by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018, with the objective of combating economic espionage, intellectual property theft and other threats associated with the government of China. However, we believe the China Initiative raises concerns of racial profiling and is harming the United States' research and technology competitiveness. This initiative has led to a significant increase of investigations and prosecutions to researchers in academia, with most cases unrelated to intellectual property theft or scientific/economic espionage. The investigations have been disproportionately targeting researchers of Chinese origin. The chilling effect of the China Initiative is discouraging many scholars from coming to or staying in the U.S. We believe that the China Initiative should be terminated. A copy of the letter and signatories is included below, which can also be accessed here . For further reading about this topic, visit our Background Information page.

This website was created to host the open letter and provide other related information. The name "Winds of Freedom" comes from the Stanford motto " Die Luft der Freiheit weht " ("The Winds of Freedom Blow"). This letter represents our personal opinions on this matter.

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