What, If Not Race, Tagged Lee?

This week, the Department of Justice released part of an internal report that called the investigation of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee “deeply flawed.” However, the report “found no evidence of racial bias” in the handling of the case. That conclusion has flaws of its own.

When Department of Energy officials suspected China had obtained U.S. nuclear secrets, they singled out the Taiwan-born Lee as a suspect. They ignored the many others who had access to the same information. According to the Justice Department report, the DOE’s inquiry pointing to Lee “was so poorly written and organized that this alone made it difficult to evaluate and comprehend.” The Justice Department also criticized the Energy Department’s inquiry for “inconsistent and contradictory statements as well as unsubstantiated assertions.” Nonetheless, Energy Department officials were so convinced of Lee’s guilt that they misled the FBI by falsely pointing to Lee as “the only individual ... who had opportunity, motivation and legitimate access.” Why?

The Justice Department report also faults the FBI for its “unhesitating and unquestioning acceptance of DOE’s identification of Lee as the most logical suspect.” The FBI readily agreed to focus the investigation on Lee. Despite the DOE’s unconvincing inquiry, FBI officials did not find it necessary to independently verify the choice of Lee as the prime suspect. Why?

If the evidence was so flimsy, what convinced the DOE and FBI that Lee was “the most logical suspect”? Lee’s race, of course.

Racial stereotyping is deeply ingrained in our culture. Racial profiling causes some people to believe that all young African American men are criminals or that all Latinos are undocumented immigrants. The stereotype of Asian Americans portrays them as foreigners who lack loyalty to the United States. This belief made it easy for a liberal champion like Franklin D. Roosevelt to put innocent Japanese Americans behind barbed wire during World War II. And it made it easy for the DOE and FBI to choose a suspect.

Is it likely that the investigators were so incompetent that they would pick an innocent suspect at random and waste years of investigation on him? It is more likely that they were influenced--whether consciously or not--by the same kind of race-centered reasoning that contaminates so many aspects of our society.

Acting on this kind of bias does not mean that the investigators were a sheet-wearing lynch mob. But it doesn’t mean they are innocent, either. They were quick to focus on Lee, but never stopped to ask themselves, “Why?”