Weapons Labs Close to Settling A Bias Boycott

By James Glanz

The nation's three premier weapons laboratories have offered to change their hiring and promotion practices in exchange for the ending of a boycott by two Asian-American academic organizations, federal officials and the leader of the boycott said yesterday.

Citing anger over the treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos weapons scientist whom the government accused of spying, as well as longer standing claims of discrimination, the organizations in early 2000 urged Asian-American scientists to boycott the weapons laboratories by not applying for jobs there. But the proposed changes are far-reaching enough, said the professor who led the boycott, that his organization, the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, is prepared to call it off. Moreover, he said, it is willing to help the laboratories start a nationwide recruiting drive for Asian-American scientists.

"I will call an end to the boycott and urge Asian-Americans to begin to apply for jobs there," said the professor, L. Ling-chi Wang, director of the Asian American Studies Program in the department of ethnic studies at the University of California. "I would even take a step beyond and get Apahe to develop a plan" for national recruitment, he said.

John Browne, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, has met repeatedly with Professor Wang since the boycott started. Yesterday, Ping Lee, a special assistant to Dr. Browne, said: "We're really close to bringing closure. The three weapons labs have come together with a common set of guidance."
That guidance, amounting to a draft agreement for changes, has been sent to the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Energy Department, which oversees the labs and must agree to any changes at the sites, which besides Los Alamos include the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories.

Gen. John A. Gordon, administrator of the security agency, said yesterday, "This thing we're calling an agreement is really very broad."

"I'm very hopeful that this will be the foundation and pave the way to make this change in the the relationship we have with those Asian-American organizations," General Gordon said. "There's a strong business case that I can't afford to cut ourselves off from the best and brightest minds in the country, and there's a strong moral case that we're going to do the right thing."

If a formal agreement is signed, Professor Wang said, it will focus on creating a plan for increasing the promotion opportunities for Asian-American scientists and addressing what he regards as disparities in research opportunities that discriminate against minorities. It will also introduce mechanisms that hold the laboratories accountable to their promises to change the workplace environment for minorities.

Though the Energy Department declined to release a copy of the document pending its review in Washington, Professor Wang said he had insisted -- and the laboratories had agreed -- that changes in dealings with Asian-Americans should apply to all minority groups at the laboratories, including women.

That requirement is far from academic. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, there is a pending class-action lawsuit alleging wage discrimination against women there. Last week, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of Asian-American employees was filed against the lab. Professor Wang said he hoped the agreement would serve as a spur for the lab to settle those lawsuits.

Though touched off by the arrest of Dr. Lee, who eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified data, the boycott focused on what many Asian-American scientists at the labs saw as discriminatory practices in their hiring, salaries, job opportunities, advancement into management positions and their treatment when obtaining and renewing security clearances.

The weapons complex is aware that there is still much untapped talent among scientists of Asian descent. They earn more than a quarter of all Ph.D.'s in science and technology at American universities each year, but still make up only 5 percent of the technical work force at Los Alamos.

Because of those concerns, both the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education and the Association of Asian American Studies passed resolutions urging a boycott of the laboratories by Asian-American scientists. The impact of the initiative has been widely debated, and even some Asian-Americans have criticized it as tending to isolate minority scientists already at the labs.

But everyone agrees that the boycott has been an embarrassment to the labs as well as a hindrance to their recruiting efforts, particularly after Sept. 11, as they have focused on revamping staffs in response to new threats to national security.

"I would think any time something like this is removed, it would be positive, especially in the climate right now when we're in a large hiring mode," said Richard Mah, an associate director for weapons engineering and manufacturing at Los Alamos. Promoted in October, Mr. Mah fills the highest post ever held by an Asian-American there.

The boycott "did have a large impact" on the lab's ability to hire Asian-Americans, Mr. Mah said.

Other scientists, including Dr. Jen-Chieh Peng, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois, who until February was a fellow at Los Alamos, said they were unsure of whether a single gesture like lifting the boycott would make a great change.

"I don't think the problem terminates once the laboratory offers corrective action to this," Dr. Peng said. "It's a longstanding problem and it's not finished with the lifting of this boycott."

But Gene I. Awakuni, vice provost for student affairs at Stanford University and a member of the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education Board, said the moves by the labs were a good first step. "If the national labs establish a concrete plan that reflects a genuine effort by the administration to address systemic issues that militate against the interests of Asian-American scientists, I believe the boycott will be lifted," Dr. Awakuni said.