By Evan Lips | February 6, 2018, 13:30 EST
BOSTON — Massachusetts lawmakers considering a bill that would direct state agencies to demand more specific nation-of-origin information from Asian-Americans will be running afoul of the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection clause, opponents of the proposal tell New Boston Post.
State Representative Tackey Chan’s (D-Quincy) legislation calls for “all state agencies, quasi-state agencies, entities created by state statute and sub-divisions of state agencies” to “identify Asian-American and Pacific Islanders as defined by the United States Census Bureau in all data collected,” in addition to gathering personal data on “the five largest Asian-American and Pacific Islander ethnic groups residing in the commonwealth.”
“I’m not a lawyer but I understand the Constitution,” George Shen …“The bill selectively collects data from racial group, one minority group, and you can’t just single out us Asians.”
Lei Zhao: … said the proposal could lead to Fair Housing Act anti-discrimination complaints.
“This bill even calls for quasi-state agencies to collect that data,” she said. “That scares me.”
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