I wanted to provide a quick update on the case of Professor Xiaofeng Wang at Indiana University. For overview details, see the posts below. The latest is the IU chapter of a faculty organization (the American Association of University Professors) has sent a letter to the university challenging Professor Wang’s termination. You can see that letter here. The letter itself is the best evidence we as yet have that Wang was in fact fired by the university. The university itself has not confirmed that or publicly commented at all. And at least no one who is talking appears to be in contact with Wang. So we don’t have any confirmation from him or anyone speaking on his behalf.
It’s important to note that all of this is unfolding in the context of people having pretty little information about what’s happening. It appears that Professor Wang is the target of a federal investigation of some sort. And the context points to something tied to espionage of some sort. But again, we don’t know that. We simply know that Wang is at the forefront of research on technologies central to high-end industry and national security (computer science, cryptography, AI). And he’s being investigated by the federal government. The AAUP letter alleges that Wang, a tenured professor, was fired with no internal university due process. The local chapter’s argument is that while such an investigation or conviction might eventually merit such a termination, due process is still critical. As they say, that is especially so in the current political climate in the U.S.
I want to step back and note some of the background and challenges of reporting on a case like this. The U.S. and China are two global powers at the forefront of technological, defense and great power competition. They are both investing huge resources in espionage and counter-espionage. A significant amount of China’s espionage and recruitment in the U.S. focuses on Chinese nationals and Chinese-Americans. It is equally true that especially over the last quarter century there has been ethnic profiling of Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans and there have been repeated panics in which people are investigated and have their lives disrupted or worse on the basis of little or no evidence. Both of these things are true and it’s very hard to know, without a lot more evidence, whether this is part of those storylines.
I’ve tried as best as I can to provide both webs of context. They’re both real. This lack of information is especially true for me since I had never heard of Wang until this weekend. But I’ve been in contact with a number of people who either know him, his work, his department or the broader field — in a number of cases all four — and they’re equally in the dark.
The one point I’ve wanted to make clear is that every signal we’re getting here points to an investigation in the general counter-espionage space. That doesn’t mean an accusation or investigation is valid necessarily. We know that’s true in the general, “innocent ’til proven guilty” sense. But that’s especially the case in the current U.S. political environment.
Federal scrutiny of Chinese-American scientists and Chinese nationals ratcheted up substantially in the latter part of the first Trump administration. So how much this is part of a larger Trump administration crackdown or something that would have happened under a Harris administration, we don’t know. I’ve heard one story circulating that suggests that this whole probe is over what I’d call close to a clerical error, or essentially a technical infraction that Wang himself wasn’t even responsible for. But it’s really just a rumor among people in the field who probably don’t know or can’t know what the FBI is looking at.
What it all comes down to is that anything is possible here. The fact that the Trump administration is filled with people who are extremely hawkish with respect to the PRC and indifferent to civil liberties and even properly predicated investigations just adds to the general climate of “who knows?”
The one thing that seems likely here is tied to the university’s response. We don’t know the full backstory. What we do know is that university’s actions here either began or were at least announced within his Department on March 14th. Placing someone on leave during an investigation is normal. But the university has gone well beyond normal, taking down public pages, apparently firing him when the FBI showed up at his homes on Friday. It’s conceivable that they’ve been presented with evidence that is either so strong or covers wrongdoing of a truly exceptional nature that they felt they had no choice. But what seems more likely is that in the current political climate they don’t want to do anything that in any way feels like they’re getting in a fight with the Trump administration. So they acted as they have here.
