Feb. 23-24 events will highlight historic Korematsu v. U.S. case and its modern-day relevance
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Professor Eric Yamamoto
Two free public events on Thursday and Friday, February 23 and 24, 2017, will look at national security and democratic liberties today – juxtaposed with World War II racial discrimination and the incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The two programs will highlight the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, and also included more than 1,300 from Hawai‘i.
Sponsored by the William S. Richardson School of Law at UH Mānoa, the programs will explore the significance of the Korematsu v U.S. decision and its important current relevance. The events, titled “National Security and Democratic Liberties: The Continuing Significance of Korematsu v U.S.," will feature some of the team of attorneys, including Richardson Law Professor Eric Yamamoto, who in 1980 reopened the Supreme Court’s 1944 Korematsu case with new evidence of fraudulent government testimony.
They won a coram nobis Federal District Court judgment that there had been no national security justification for the mass incarceration. (Coram nobis is a rare legal remedy for setting aside an erroneous judgment in a civil or criminal action because of an error in fact.)
Yamamoto is the much-honored Fred T. Korematsu Professor of Law and Social Justice at the UH Law School.
The events:
- Thursday, February 23, from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. at the UH Law School at 2515 Dole Street. The coram nobis team attorneys Dale Minami, Lori Bannai and Yamamoto will be joined by Karen Korematsu, Fred Korematsu’s daughter, and Richardson Scholar Advocate law students Anna Jang and Jaime Tokioka.
- Friday, February 24, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the King Kamehameha V. Judiciary History Center at 417 South King Street. The team of attorneys, joined by team member Leigh-Ann Miyasato and Karen Korematsu, will be part of a roundtable Q&A discussion and a reception.
For more information, visit: https://www.law.hawaii.edu/