A big settlement for one Chinese-American scientist won’t end wrongful prosecutions

Chen said through her lawyer that she is currently thinking through her next steps. Gang Chen, an MIT scientist who has been wrongly accused of espionage for China and is not related to Sherry Chen, says he feels her pain.

Gang Chen said that it was important to remember that this was a decade of Sherry's life. I think about the years that so many have lost, including myself, and the trauma that continues for those directly impacted and for their families. They do not fully compensate for what has been lost.

Sherry Chen's case is an example of a broad pattern of wrongdoing by her accusers. One of the main criticisms of the China Initiative is that law enforcement casts doubt on certain activities that certain ethnic groups engage in. It's difficult to prove bias in court. The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS), an internal security unit at the Commerce Department, was found to be particularly blatant in its racial profiling practices.

ITMS ran ethnic surnames through secure databases and targeted an employee because of her ethnic Chinese origin, according to a Senate committee report. The unit was shut down due to an internal investigation.

Not all government malpractice is exposed in Senate reports, and much more is hidden. Frank is a lawyer, activist, and president of Queens College at the City University of New York. The person who consulted on Chen's case was not her lawyer.

Even though the DOJ ended the China Initiative, the implicit bias that led to such prosecutions still exists. It might have become more hidden.

Chen's win doesn't mean others will have an easier time getting justice People hope that Chen's settlement will set a precedent, as it was the first of its kind for a Chinese American scientist. The reality isn't likely to be that simple.

Margaret Lewis is a professor of law at Seton Hall University who focuses on criminal justice and human rights. The government was careful not to set a broader precedent. Other scholars fighting their own wrongful prosecution cases couldn't just point to Chen's case and argue that the same decision should apply.