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4/8/03 KOREMATSU TO SPEAK AT NORTHWESTERN LAW

Fred Korematsu, the man behind the seminal Constitutional Law case Korematsu v. United States, will make his first appearance to Chicago-area law schools Tuesday, April 8 at Northwestern University School of Law, 357 E. Chicago Ave.

Free and open to the public, the event will open at 3:30 pm with a screening of the documentary, "Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story." Afterwards there will be a panel discussion led by Fred and Kathryn Korematsu and the film's director, Eric Paul Fournier. A reception with refreshments will wrap up the event, which is part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Week at the Law School.

Fred Korematsu was arrested in May of 1942 for refusing to obey Executive Order 9066 which forced 120,00 Americans of Japanese ancestry into internment. He challenged the order as it applied to him, a loyal citizen of the United States, but he was found guilty of knowingly violating the Civilian Exclusion Order. Mr. Korematsu appealed the district court's decision to the U.S. Circuit Court, but his conviction was sustained. He was confined in a relocation center in Utah while he appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court.

In the landmark case Korematsu v. United States, the US Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Justice Black wrote in a majority opinion that, "[E]xclusion of those of Japanese origin was deemed necessary because of the presence of an unascertained number of disloyal members of the group, most of whom we have no doubt were loyal to this country."

Mr. Korematsu spent the next four decades tirelessly fighting not only to clear his own name but to demonstrate that the U.S. government's exculsuion and detention actions were not only legally and constitutionally unsupportable, but also tantamount to legalized racism against Japanese Americans. In 1984, with newly recovered proof that the U.S. government omitted evidence and provided misleading information, his original conviction was overturned. A federal district court found the government's exclusion and detention actions during the war to be a violation of the constituional rights of Japanese Americans. This decision provided the impetus for the 1988 Civil Liberties Act in which the U.S. governement apologized for the forced internment of Japanese American citizens. Each internee was compensated with a payment of $20,000. Mr.Korematsu's case is now considered one of the most important legal cases in civil and minority rights.

In 1998 Mr. Korematsu received the President's Medal of Freedom, the United State's highest civilian award. In the White House Award Presentation Ceremony, President Clinton said, "In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls: Plessy. Brown. Parks. To that distinguished list, today we add the name of Fred Korematsu."

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