Former University of Kansas professor Dr. Feng “Franklin” Tao is finally getting more justice after being targeted by the Trump administration’s China Initiative, a policy created to root out Chinese spies in American academia.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned a conviction against Dr. Tao for making a false statement by failing to disclose his affiliation with Fuzhou University to the University of Kansas, Reuters reports.
Dr. Tao, a permanent U.S. resident who moved to the United States in 2002, was arrested and prosecuted for allegedly hiding his ties in China. In 2022, a jury found Tao guilty on four of the eight counts against him. That same year, a judge overturned three wire fraud convictions, citing a lack of evidence. Thursday’s decision tossed out the fourth and final conviction.
Asian American civil rights organizations have been raising awareness about Dr. Tao’s case. He is one of several Chinese researchers unfairly targeted by the China Initiative.
“We applaud the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to overturn Dr. Tao’s conviction and heartened by their recognition that there was insufficient evidence to support the charges made against him. It was clear that from the beginning that Dr. Tao’s case was one of racial profiling and that he and other Asian American scholars were targeted based on ethnicity and national origin through the China Initiative,” Joanna YangQing Derman, Director of Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights, and National Security at Advancing Justice – AAJC said in a statement.
The China Initiative was ended under the Biden administration but the pain and injustice it caused still remains.
“For over four years, Dr. Tao and his family endured significant hardship. We applaud this landmark victory for recognizing that the legacy of the outdated China Initiative continues to impact Asian Americans today,” Said Gisela Perez Kusakawa, executive director of the Asian American Scholar Forum said in a statement.
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