Kenly Kato, nominated to a federal court in California, was asked about a 1995 book review in which she said neoconservative Asian Americans “internalize the dialogue of oppressors.”
Republican lawmakers grilled a Biden judicial pick on Tuesday, asking the Japanese American judge if affirmative action is akin to racial discrimination and bringing up a book review she wrote as a law student.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenly Kato, nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, faced intense questioning about an article she wrote in 1995 when she was 23 and attending Harvard Law School. Part of the review, which Kato co-authored, says neoconservative Asian Americans “internalize the dialogue of oppressors, believing in the values of the status quo and condemning the activism of their group.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Kato if she still believed that sentiment. The judge said she “had no idea what we were trying to convey.”
Kato declined NBC Asian America’s request for comment.
The topic of the article was revived by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who prefaced his exchange with Kato by asking, “Is racial discrimination wrong?”
“Our Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of race,” Kato responded. “As a judge, I don’t deal with issues of morality”
Cruz said that Kato’s writing as a student conveyed that “to be sufficiently woke, an Asian American must support policies that discriminate against Asian Americans.” He referred to a lawsuit against Harvard — now to be heard by the Supreme Court — alleging that the university’s diversity initiatives discriminate against Asian undergraduates.
Asian American civil rights activists have cautioned against making this argument, saying that framing affirmative action as anti-Asian bias is “dangerous.”
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