By Jason Cruz
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Named after the civil rights pioneer, the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality will conclude its stay at Seattle University Law Center and move to the University of California Irvine (UCI) School of Law on July 1, 2024. The Korematsu Center has been at Seattle University since its inception in 2009.
Fred T. Korematsu
Fred T. Korematsu was a civil rights pioneer, having argued that the mandatory imprisonment in incarceration camps of individuals of Japanese ancestry was illegal. In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order in Korematsu v. United States. However, in 2011, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal revealed that one of his predecessors withheld evidence and deceived the U.S. Supreme Court. The evidence was a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence that concluded the Japanese Americans on the West Coast did not pose a military threat. The decades-long Supreme Court ruling was overturned.
Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 2005.
His legacy lives on through the center and its work. According to its website, it “uses research, advocacy, and education to advance justice and equality in Washington state and across the nation.” Professor Robert Chang has been with the center from the start and will continue it at UCI. “I am thrilled to be joining UCI Law and finding an institutional home that has so many of the components—engaged faculty, students and alumni committed to racial justice and a highly acclaimed clinical program—that will allow the already-established Korematsu Center to flourish and build at UCI Law what we are calling Korematsu Center 2.0.,” said Chang in a school press release.
Professor Robert Chang (right) with Melissa Lee (Photo by Assunta Ng)
UCI committed to teach a core race justice clinic in their school taught by a permanent faculty member. “That’s the big commitment,” Chang stated. He will also get a teaching fellowship, which will allow him to launch a legal scholar into law teaching.
“My responsibility as Fred Korematsu’s daughter is to protect, preserve, and promote my father’s legacy,” said Dr. Karen Korematsu, founder and president of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute. “Therefore, it is essential to ensure an academic law center that bears my father’s name is housed at an institution that will fully honor and advance his civil rights legacy. I am excited and encouraged that UCI Law, with its commitment to public service and racial justice, will be the new home for the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality.”
“UCI is providing the [Fred T. Korematsu] Center a path toward the ability to grow and thrive,” said Seattle University Law Professor Lorraine Bannai. The Korematsu Center has been known as the “jewel in the crown of Seattle U. [Law School].” It was Professor Bannai that originally suggested that Fred Koremasu’s name be used for the Center. She suggested that the Center should be named after a “civil rights icon.”
The Law Center was propelled into the spotlight in 2010 when it developed the Race and Criminal Justice Task Force. The study group, comprised of academics and practitioners, sought to document racial disparity in Washington’s criminal justice system and to make recommendations intended to find better methods in it.
On behalf of the Korematsu Law Center, Chang represented high school students in a high-profile case in Tucson, Arizona. The case alleged that students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the enactment and enforcement of a law which eliminated the Tucson School District’s Mexican American Studies program. Although Korematsu was of Japanese ancestry, the Center protects all wrongs.
“Fred Korematsu stood for everybody in terms of recognizing injustice,” said Chang. As a result, Chang was able to secure attorney fees on behalf of the Center, which allowed it to continue its mission.
The Center became involved in the “Muslim travel ban,” imposed in an Executive Order by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
“When I realized what the questions were going to be before the court, I thought, here is the way to get the court to examine the historical precedent that justified Chinese Exclusion and Korematsu during World War II,” said Chang. In this instance, the Center was proactive in reaching out to those attorneys on the front lines at airports trying to navigate the ban. It joined in an amicus curiae brief ((brief supporting one party’s side) supporting the challengers. The argument supported by the Center argued that Trump violated the Constitution with his ban. It drew analogies to Korematsu’s lawsuit in World War II which challenged a president’s power and used the court as a check on it.
Looking to grow and establish the roots of the Korematsu Center, Chang believed it was time to look for other opportunities.
“I got permission from the Korematsu family to think about moving,” said Chang. “What I had come to hear about UCI made it a great fit.” Chang added, “A lot of people there do great work on race justice.” The ability to build a durable institution piqued his interest. The Southern California law school assured long-term stability for the program along with support for future initiatives.
Despite losing Chang, the two current assistant directors of the Center will continue to work with him on advocacy issues.
“We are extremely sad to lose him as a colleague,” said current Assistant Director of the Korematsu Law Center Jessica Levin. “It has been so great to work with Bob, and one of the reasons for that is that he is someone who has a vision for how the world should be different and what needs to happen for that to come about. And then he works on making it happen,” added Professor Lee.
The two will work with the Civil Rights Clinic at Seattle University.
“Our students give great feedback about the clinic,” said Lee about the Clinic and the prospects of its continued value to the law school. “It provides one of the only opportunities to work on issues of race.”
“The faculty and students in Seattle University School of Law’s Civil Rights Clinic will continue the work of advocating for individual clients seeking justice and for systemic reform in the way that courts and other actors identify and redress racial inequities,” said Seattle University School of Law Dean Anthony E. Varona.
“The Korematsu Center has played a valuable role in channeling the talents and interests of our faculty and students in their efforts to live out our Jesuit, Catholic mission of striving for a more just and humane world. The Center served as the launching pad for the Civil Rights Clinic, the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, and the Defender Initiative. Each of these programs will continue here at Seattle University School of Law. The Center also enabled the school to play a major convening role in critical discussions related to race and justice. This work, too, will continue.”
Jason can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.