When anti-Asian hate incidents surged in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Manju Kulkarni co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition that built the first national reporting system for anti-Asian bias in the United States. The data it gathered gave policymakers, journalists, and the public a documented picture of a crisis that had gone largely uncounted. That evidence base directly supported the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, signed into law in May 2021, the first federal legislation specifically addressing anti-Asian discrimination. By transforming community experience into policy-grade data, Kulkarni helped establish a model for diaspora-led civil rights organizing with national legislative impact.
