University of California, Berkeley President Atkinson M. Berdahl's decision to ban students from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Singapore has been protested. Dr. Ivy Lee, President of
Chinese American Political Action Committee, sent a letter on May 8 protesting President Berdahl's decision. The letter states:
I'm writing on behalf of the Chinese American Political Action Committee to ask you to reconsider your policy of barring students from SARS-afflicted regions to attend UCB's summer sessions. The policy has crossed the line of prudence into an uncharted area of profiling based on region with shades of racial profiling. UCB would be prudent if students entering the U.S. from SARS-afflicted areas are monitored for their health status for the incubation period of the virus. It is profiling when "region" is the only criterion used in barring students from affected areas to attend UCB summer sessions that are otherwise open to students from all other regions of the world. In actual practice, the policy affects only Chinese and ethnic Chinese; thus my reference to shades of racial profiling. The concerns Gary Penders, Director of Berkeley Summer Sessions, expressed of creating a worldwide plague by allowing these prospective Chinese attendants to commingle with others during the summer cannot be dismissed lightly. However if UCB does not have the capability of dealing or is unwilling to deal with this potential health problem, then UCB is not ready to have summer sessions at all. Our nation has a high regard for UCB as an educational institution. It is at critical times like this that we look to UCB for help in educating the public about the disease, not in fueling the hysteria that surrounds it. And we surely do not expect UCB to spearhead an insensitive and blanket policy of exclusion which raises specters of the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Yellow Peril stereotypes. I strongly urge you to lift UC Berkeley's summer session ban on students from SARS-affected area or close down UC Berkeley for the summer to ready the campus for dealing with SARS.