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The Atlanta massacre on March 16, 2021, spurred a series of solidarity statements with the broader Asian and Asian American1 community from higher education institutions across the nation. While many colleges and universities have expressed their grief and support with the larger Asian and Asian American community, the same institutions have yet to reflect and reckon with their own history of exclusion, which has omitted Asian and Asian American students from larger conversations of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The purposes of this brief are to name the forms of anti-Asian racism that already exist in higher education institutions and to propose a series of recommendations to address the foreseeable forms of overt and covert anti-Asian violence that may occur when students return to campuses in fall 2021 and beyond. We recommend that institutions of higher education: create effectual task forces to think strategically about racism and xenophobia towards Asian and Asian American students; increase funding for ethnic studies, specifically, Asian American Studies Departments, Programs, and Centers; and collect and report disaggregated data on diverse subgroups of Asian and Asian American students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges for K-12 students. However, these challenges have not been experienced equally across student groups. There has been a significant increase in mainstream media coverage of anti-Asian racism, but very little attention has been given to Asian American youth, who are not immune from incidents of bullying and harassment in our K-12 schools. This brief discusses how Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students face unique challenges associated with bullying and harassment because of their racial and ethnic identity. We examine the historical context of bullying and harassment of Asian Americans and how that persists as anti-Asian racism today. Finally, we propose policy solutions to create a more positive learning environment and address racist attitudes towards this specific community. Notably, we propose that K-12 leaders disaggregate data by ethnic subgroup, collect more comprehensive data on school bullying, harassment, and victimization disaggregated by AAPI ethnic subgroups, and invest in culturally sustaining mental health resources and curriculum.