Sugiarto and his classmates hope this time will be different given recent events.
Eng-Beng Lim, the Dartmouth professor who taught Sugiarto's class, said the petition gained momentum after the massage business killings, and even fueled discussions with administrators.
Credit: AP
Nicholas Sugiarto, of San Diego, Calif., a student at Dartmouth College, stands for a photograph on the school's campus, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in Hanover, N.H. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Those talks recently stalled, though Lim still described it as a “promising and critical impasse.”
“When U.S. universities refuse to support Asian American studies that are framed in a way that we have framed it, it’s really a missed opportunity to think about how we might have a more nuanced understanding of American racism beyond binary terms of Black and white,” Lim said.