Claire Kim (UC Irvine), the keynote speaker for the Duke Asian American Studies Program Inaugural Conference, “Afro/Asian Connections in the Local/Global South,” presents: "Are Asians the New Blacks? Affirmative Action, Antiblackness, and the ‘Sociometry’ of Race.” This presentation sheds light on the pending affirmative action lawsuit filed by Asian American plaintiffs against Harvard University by providing a brief history of how Asian Americans have been figured (and have figured themselves) in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence on race-conscious admissions in higher education. It shows that the figuration of Asian Americans has played a critical role in the legal-ideological project of despecifying black subjection and disavowing racial positionality in the U.S. social order, from Bakke to the present, and argues that a new ‘sociometry’ of race is necessary to help us understand and challenge persistent structures of racial power.T

his conference is presented by the Duke Asian American Studies Program (https://asianamericanstudies.duke.edu) with support from Humanities Futures. In the lecture, Kim shows a video of “Protests held ahead of Harvard admissions lawsuit,” which is produced by WCVB Channel 5 Boston and can be found here: Protests held ahead of Harvard admissions lawsuit