“Defining an entire continent of billions of individuals by a singular characteristic is the definition of racism,” said Representative Judy Chu, a Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Gibbons’s comments, she added, “betray his own lack of ‘critical thinking.’”

Russell Jeung, the co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, a group that monitors incidents of discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said Gibbons’s description of Asian intelligence was “part of the dehumanizing rhetoric around AAPIs that has contributed to the surge in racism that harms us today.”