Addressing Anti-AAPI Discrimination in the Workplace

Last week, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that seeks to address the rise in hate crimes committed against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) since the beginning of the COVID‑19 pandemic. While the legislation received bipartisan support in Congress and has encouraged activists, experts insist there is much more to be done to combat anti-AAPI discrimination—especially in the workplace.

COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act

Introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, the COVID‑19 Hate Crimes Act mandates that the U.S. Department of Justice appoint an officer or employee to expedite the review of hate crimes related to COVID‑19. It also issues guidance for law enforcement to establish better online resources for reporting hate crimes and authorizes grants for state and local governments to improve their responses to hate crimes.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Asian-American to serve in that office, noted that the bill is not a panacea and much work remains left to do. "Here's the truth: Racism exists in America," she said. "Xenophobia exists in America, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia—it all exists. And so, the work to address injustice wherever it exists remains the work ahead."

Between March 19, 2020, and March 31, 2021, at least 6,600 incidents were reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting center launched last year. The numbers appear to be increasing dramatically: In the first three months of 2021, more than 2,400 incidents were reported, compared with about 4,200 in 2020. The most common types of discrimination are verbal harassment (65.2 percent), shunning (18.1 percent) and physical assault (12.6 percent).

Civil rights violations, which include workplace discrimination, accounted for 10.3 percent of the incidents reported. The Stop AAPI Hate National Report provided accounts of these violations: a hospital in Carmel, Calif., where staff referred to COVID‑19 as the "China virus" and harassed Asian workers; a company in Santa Maria, Calif., where an employee was subjected to racist insults and death threats from co-workers; and a retailer in Cranston, R.I., where a supervisor took no action after an employee was repeatedly harassed by customers.

Addressing Hate in the Workplace

In a statement, Stop AAPI Hate applauded the COVID‑19 Hate Crimes Act. However, the organization noted that because the bill centers on hate crimes, it does not address other types of significant incidents. It urged the federal government to go further and take action that goes beyond law enforcement, such as strengthening civil rights laws that address discrimination.

According to Jared Pope, employment law specialist and founder of Work Shield, a company that works to resolve conflict in the workplace, businesses need to do more to address hate incidents and discrimination in the workplace. He described being disheartened that recent incidents targeting Asian-Americans—particularly the mass shooting that occurred in Atlanta in March 2021—did not spark the same kind of response from companies and the public that the 2020 murder of George Floyd did just over a year ago.

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