On April 19, 2021, RCPL assistant professor C. Aujean Lee presented her research to the West Virginia University Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
Her presentation, entitled “A Racism Typology and Government Responses to Anti-Asian Discrimination and Incidents,” shared research findings on her study with John C. Arroyo (University of Oregon) about state and local government statements on anti-Asian hate crimes in early 2020.
These initial reactions highlight challenges and failures of jurisdictions to push for anti-racism and policies that would support their Asian American constituents.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been at least 3,800 cases of harassment, threats, hate crimes and/or civil rights violations against Asian Americans. Many of these incidents invoke a long history of Asian Americans racialized as either yellow peril (the cause of the pandemic) and/or perpetual foreigners (they do not belong in the country). While Asian American activists and community groups have led the way in collecting these stories and issuing statements, government agencies are behind in naming and/or calling attention to these incidents. This study examines state and local governments that chose to issue statements related to anti-Asian incidents to understand how the government's role in defining and reinforcing racial categories. Statements from 50 state governments and 104 cities within the largest metropolitan regions were analyzed between January 21 and May 1, 2020. These initial reactions highlight challenges and failures of jurisdictions to push for anti-racism and policies that would support their Asian American constituents. The study has important implications because of the ways in which government rhetoric can lead to violent eruptions such as in the recent Atlanta shooting and because other populations have experienced increased harassment since the onset of the pandemic.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
