On September 8, 2021, 177 faculty members at Stanford University wrote an open letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to express their concerns about the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative.” While acknowledging the importance to the United States of protecting both intellectual property and information that is essential to our national and economic security, these faculty members, including 8 Nobel laureates, strongly urged AG Garland to terminate the "China Initiative" and replace it with an appropriate response that avoids the identified flaws of this initiative.

Since September 8, 214 UC Berkeley faculty members and 167 Temple University faculty members have endorsed the Stanford letter and sent in their letters to AG Garland. 

If you are also concerned about this issue, the Stanford faculty members have created a website named Winds of Freedom to host the open letter and provide background and instructions on actions that you can take to collect signatories from faculty at your institution to either endorse the Stanford letter or send a similar letter.

In addition, with support from its organizers, APA Justice invites additional faculty members and qualified endorsers* from universities and educational institutions across the U.S. to endorse the Stanford faculty letter here: https://bit.ly/2X3LRtm.  We plan to close the petition on or before November 3, 2021 and send this cover letter with a list of endorsers to AG Garland.

* For this campaign, a qualified endorser is defined as a person with the current or former rank of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, lecturer, scholar, or administrator, who has a valid and verifiable .edu email address at an accredited university or similar educational institution in the United States. Titles and associations are for identification only; endorsers do not represent the university or institution. Where judgment on the status of an endorser may be needed, final decision will be made by the organizers of this campaign.