Senate hate crimes bill ignores anti-Asian American discrimination

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In the days following the Atlanta spa shooting, the media latched on to the narrative that the shooter was motivated by racism leading him to take the lives of 8 victims, six of whom were Asian women. However, no evidence has been found to support this claim. In fact, authorities in Georgia found that Robert Aaron Long experienced a sex addiction which caused him to frequent the establishments impacted by the incident. The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Capt. Jay Baker told reporters that, “He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places, and it’s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.” Irrespective of the professional opinion of the Georgia authorities, the media has continued to push unfounded theories about the shooting in order to promote their progressive policy agenda which centers around systematic racism.

This week, propelled by media attention, the Senate overwhelmingly passed S.937- Covid Hate Crimes Act by a vote of 94-1. The legislation is meant to combat “a dramatic increase in hate crimes and violence against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders” and even includes the Atlanta spa shooting as an example. The bill establishes a new position within the Department of Justice to investigate anti-Asian hate crimes that occurred during the Covid pandemic. Furthermore, it requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop guidelines aimed at preventing Asian hate in the future.

The lone lawmaker to vote against the legislation, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), believes “it’s dangerous to give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents.” Senator Hawley is right to have concerns about legislation that broadens the powers of the federal government, but other critics of S.937 point to the omission of the most prevalent and appalling form of anti-Asian discrimination: college admissions.

Asians regularly outperform all other racial groups in the classroom, including whites, but face more stringent admissions standards. A lawsuit filed against Yale University in 2020 alleged that the school “rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it otherwise would admit” and found that whites and Asians had one-fourth to one-tenth the chance to get into Yale when compared to African-American students. The Biden administration elected to drop the discrimination suit against Yale and is poised to take the side of Harvard in an upcoming legal battle on the subject.

In an effort to ensure equality among all races, admissions processes should be entirely merit-based and should reward students solely for excelling in the classroom. No students should have educational opportunities withheld from them due to the color of their skin. Therefore, if Congress truly hopes to make a positive difference in the lives of Asian Americans, it would abandon virtue signaling and make certain that all children are treated equally in our education system.