Harvard students & long-time civil rights advocates receive Courage Awards

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Courage Award recipients, from left, Paul Lee, Karen Korematsu, Karen Narasaki, Sally Chen and Jang Lee.

Harvard students who supported affirmative action in the school's admission policies assures that Asian Americans will have champions in the next generation of civil rights advocates.

The students were among the individuals honored over the weekend in ceremonies in Washington DC with the American Courage Awards from the Advancing Justice | AAJC (Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC). 

The students, represented by Sally Chen and Jang Lee, were joined by AAJC president and executive director Karen Narasaki; former long-time Goodwin Procter LLP Partner Paul Lee; and Fred T. Korematsu Institute founder and executive director Karen Korematsu.

The American Courage Awards is an annual event honoring individuals, groups, or corporations for their extraordinary commitment to the cause of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) civil and human rights.

Along with their fellow Harvard student advocates, Lee and Chen testified in federal court — sharing their personal experiences and emphasizing the importance of race in being able to share their whole stories. 

“These young advocates demonstrate that the next generation of Asian American leaders is ready to safeguard the rights of our communities and advance social justice,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Advancing Justice | AAJC. “From their testimony in the case to their interviews in the media, these students have illustrated how Asian Americans benefit from affirmative action and why we must care about this fight.” 

Korematsu was presented with the President’s Award for her leadership in the Asian American community. She is a civil rights advocate, educator, and public speaker. The daughter of the late civil rights activist, Fred Korematsu, She has dedicated her life to carrying her father’s legacy. In 2009, she established the Fred T. Korematsu Institute to advance racial equity, social justice and human rights for all. 

“Karen Korematsu is an undeniable icon in the community and her desire to make the world a better place for everybody is infectious,” said Yang, “Speaking up for the civil rights of Asian Americans courses through her bloodline and we are proud to applaud Karen as she continues her late father’s legacy.”

“Karen Korematsu is an undeniable icon in the community and her desire to make the world a better place for everybody is infectious,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Advancing Justice | AAJC. “Speaking up for the civil rights of Asian Americans courses through her bloodline and we are proud to applaud Karen as she continues her late father’s legacy.”

Lee "understands that lawyers have a special role in society, and that part of that role is to pay it forward,” said Yang.  “For Paul it is not only about personal giving, but also about inspiring others to join him in making sure that lawyers continue to give back to the community.”

“Karen Narasaki is a pioneer who grew Advancing Justice | AAJC into the powerhouse that it is today and we are proud to have the chance to say thank you as we honor her with the American Courage Award,” said Yang.  

“A part of Karen’s legacy is pushing organizations and individuals to do more for the communities that rely on them – a job she did so well as the president of Advancing Justice | AAJC - and she has been instrumental in creating the infrastructure for today’s Asian Pacific American advocacy landscape.”

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Bill introduced to award Congressional Gold Medal to Fred Korematsu

KOREMATSU INSTITTUE

Karen Korematsu, stands before a portrait of her father, Fred Korematsu.

On what would have been his 100th birthday, Congress introduced bicameral legislation Tuesday (Jan. 30) to award Fred Korematsu the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his fight against the illegal incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and his work to advance civil rights.

“Fred Korematsu stood up for the rights of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, and continued his fight for decades to expand civil rights and overturn his own false criminal conviction,” said Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, one of the sponsors of the legislation. “Awarding the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor, to Fred Korematsu is a fitting tribute to his lifelong pursuit of justice and equality.”

Sponsoring the bill in the House, is Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif. “Mr. Korematsu was an outspoken activist, a fighter for justice, and a hero to many – including myself," says Takano. 

"As a son of Japanese Americans who lived through Japanese internment during World War II, I find Mr. Korematsu’s legacy to be a guiding light for the work that I do in Congress. His life’s work placed civil rights at the forefront and it has been one of the cornerstones in the movement to build an America where everyone can be treated equally under the law."

In 1942, at the age of 23, Korematsu was arrested for refusing to enter the internment camps for Japanese Americans. After his arrest, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld Executive Order 9066 based on military necessity. 

Four decades later, on Nov. 10, 1983, Korematsu’s criminal conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. Korematsu remained a civil rights advocate throughout his life and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton in 1998. He passed away on March 30, 2005 at the age of 86.

“My father, Fred T. Korematsu, was born in Oakland, California 100 years ago today. A civil rights pioneer, he dedicated his life to ‘stand up for what is right,’ and he worked to ensure what happened to him and other Japanese Americans will never happen again to any other minority group,” said Karen Korematsu, founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute and daughter of Fred Korematsu. "Through this bill, it is a reminder that we must Stop Repeating History and, like my father, continue to champion civil liberties and the Constitution for all.”

“This legislation is an important acknowledgement of the injustice suffered by my grandparents, parents, and more than 115,000 others who were relocated and imprisoned based on nothing more than their heritage,” said Takano. “This stain on our history must serve as a warning of what happens when we allow fear and hate to overwhelm our basic respect for one another."

“The specter of the Korematsu decision haunts us to this day,” said National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) president Pankit Doshi. “With this bill, Congress has the chance to repudiate the Supreme Court’s ruling and prevent the country from repeating a dark chapter of our nation’s history."

“This legislation is an important acknowledgement of the injustice suffered by my grandparents, parents, and more than 115,000 others who were relocated and imprisoned based on nothing more than their heritage,” said Takano. “This stain on our history must serve as a warning of what happens when we allow fear and hate to overwhelm our basic respect for one another."

Tuesday's legislation is a follow-up to a bill introduced Dec. 18, 2018 the anniversary of the widely-condemned Korematsu Supreme Court decision that led to the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth, D-IL and Hirono introduced the Korematsu-Takai Civil Liberties Protection Act of 2017 (S. 2250) to prevent similar civil and human rights travesties from happening on U.S. soil ever again. 

Their legislation is named in honor of the late U.S. Congressman Mark Takai from Hawaii for his long-time leadership on this issue prior to his passing. 

With President Trump’s continued efforts to restrict minority and immigrant civil and human rights, the bill would help our nation stop repeating history by ensuring that no individual is imprisoned or detained based upon a protected characteristic such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. Takano introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“We, as a nation, must never forget or repeat the horrors thousands of Japanese Americans experienced as prisoners within our own borders, said Duckworth. "We must also continue to do everything we can to ensure such a national travesty never happens again. I’m proud to introduce this bill with Senator Hirono in remembrance of my dear friend and former colleague Mark Takai to reinstate our commitment to protecting civil liberties and strengthen our resolve to ensure we never again repeat such shameful acts.”
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SCOTUS finally overturns infamous Korematsu ruling

ONE OF THE WORST decisions made by the Supreme Court was revoked in the Supreme Court decision rendered today in regards to the Donald Trump Muslim ban.

In the June 26 ruling by the conservative majority and in the dissent by the liberal minority, 1944's  ruling that justified the interment of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent, Korematsu v. United States, was repudiated.

RELATED: A divided Supreme Court upholds Muslm ban

Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in her dissent the “stark parallels between the reasoning of this case and that of Korematsu v. United States,” 

In the intervening years since Korematsu, our Nation has done much to leave its sordid legacy behind … Today, the Court takes the important step of finally overruling Korematsu, denouncing it as “gravely wrong the day it was decided.”…This formal repudiation of a shameful precedent is laudable and long overdue. But it does not make the majority’s decision here acceptable or right. By blindly accepting the Government’s misguided invitation to sanction a discriminatory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group, all in the name of a superficial claim of national security, the Court redeploys the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu and merely replaces one “gravely wrong” decision with another.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision apparently took offense and addressed Sotomayor's inference that Trump’s travel ban was the same thing as the internment of Japanese Americans.

Finally, the dissent invokes Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). Whatever rhetorical advantage the dissent may see in doing so, Korematsu has nothing to do with this case. The forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority. But it is wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission. See post, at 26–28. The entry suspension is an act that is well within executive authority and could have been taken by any other President—the only question is evaluating the actions of this particular President in promulgating an otherwise valid Proclamation.

The dissent’s reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—“has no place in law under the Constitution.” 323 U. S., at 248 (Jackson, J., dissenting).

With that, Roberts' Court formally overturned one of the most shameful decisions rendered by the High Court.

Korematsu was decided after Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American of San Leandro, Calif., refused to relocate to an internment camp. U.S. officials arrested him convicted him for refusing to comply. He eventually fought his conviction all the way up to the Supreme Court — but the Court, in 1944, ruled that Korematsu was violated the executive order 9066 signed by President Frankly Roosevelt and the U.S. acted lawfully in attempting to intern not just him but other Japanese Americans.

Although Korematsu died in 2005, in 2011, the Justice Department issued a formal "confession of error" in the his case, acknowledging that government lawyers lied about the severity of the security threat posed by Japanese Americans.

Ironically, the confession was ordered by the acting solicitor general at the time, Neal Katyal, who represented the challengers to the Muslim ban.

Yesterday (June 26) Korematsu's daughter, Karen Korematsu, issued this statement:

"Yet again, I am disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision. The Muslim travel ban is unjust and singles out individuals due to the religion they practice, similar to Execudtive Order 9066 that unconstitutionally imprisoned my father due to his Japanese ancestry.

"In Korematsu v. United States, the Court ruled against my father, a decision that constitutional scholars, on both sides of the aisle, have continued to criticize. Although the Court overruled my father's case today,  it only has substituted one injustice for another.  

"This decision motivates me more to continue my work as Executive Director of the Fred. T. Korematsu Institute to educate, advocate and protect our civil liberties for all."

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