JOKES ABOUT ASIANS INCORRECT

No more Irish jokes either?

"It began, like so many office controversies, with an e-mail message. Responding to a note seeking someone to adopt a puppy, a partner in the London office of the law firm of Dewey Ballantine wrote, "Don't let them go to a Chinese restaurant."

Some of the firm's associates found the message offensive and said so; dozens of Asian-American law student associations and bar associations have criticized it as well. Senior partners at the firm almost immediately sent out a firmwide apology. So did the author of the message....

It is rare but not unheard-of for dog to appear on the menu in a restaurant in China, and dog is even less likely to be offered by Chinese restaurants in other parts of the world. The message was offensive, associates at the firm say, because it seemed to mock Chinese people.

"People say, 'Oh, you're just being oversensitive,' but I think it's a symptom of something underlying," said Karen Y. Tu, a second-year law student at Columbia who is co-chairwoman of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. She later said: "What is going to change this environment? What is going to make it easier? What is going to make Asian-Americans comfortable about going back to Dewey?"

The incident shows that lawyers, who handle lawsuits filed over discriminatory treatment and all manner of other disputes, send e-mail messages that can lead to accusations of racism, too. And when they do, the firms they work for are subject to the same forms of protest as those messages wend their way around the world....

"There is no defense in these situations," said Roger Cramton, a law professor at Cornell. He added that law professors have had to rethink the examples they use to illustrate legal issues in classes. "This is such a politically correct world.""

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