Public Forum on Security at National Labs
and Monitoring of Foreign Students

Top researchers, security experts and members of the Asian-American community will address closer monitoring of researchers and students from “sensitive” countries in a public forum sponsored by AAAS on Thursday, October 19.

The public discussions, to be held from 8:30 to 10:15 a.m. in the AAAS auditorium, will focus on two areas of significant public concern:

Several reports document that Asian and Asian-American scientists are avoiding jobs at U.S. weapon laboratories, particularly Los Alamos, New Mexico, because they claim that researchers of Asian descent have been harassed and systematically passed over for promotions due to their ethnicity. The treatment of Asian scientists in the laboratories has been a sensitive issue for some time, but it has been especially pronounced recently following Dr. Wen Ho Lee’s arrest and the resulting increased security measures directed at scientists from certain countries.

In the academic community, considerable controversy surrounds the recommendation of the National Commission on Terrorism Report that the INS monitor what foreign students study at U.S. universities. The report’s proposal would extend to universities nationwide an existing INS program that is now in its pilot phase, the Coordinated Interagency Partnership Regulating International Students (CIPRIS).