Deciphering culturally-coded institutional responses to COVID-19 adversity and anti-Asian hate in higher education

Select higher education institutions in the US and China emphasized political/medical authority and collaboration in announcements addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. US institutions tended to focus on independent needs and norms (student support, emotional validation, assurance of academic success) and framed the future as being uncertain, while Chinese universities stressed interdependent messages about compliance as well as moral duty and individual responsibility for a collective problem. Most US institutions overlooked Asians/Asian Americans as being potential targets of racial bias or discrimination in the context of the pandemic, yet some institutions implicitly linked COVID-19 to China or Asia.