Asian Affinity Group

Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: A Conversation With Dr. Karen Korematsu on Her Father’s Civil Rights Legacy

For Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jones Day’s Asian Lawyers Affinity Group welcomed Dr. Karen Korematsu, founder of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute and daughter of civil rights icon Fred T. Korematsu. She advocates nationally for civil liberties, social justice, and ethnic studies education.

Asian Americans have shaped U.S. history, now celebrating its 250th anniversary. During a Firmwide webinar, Dr. Korematsu discussed her father’s 1944 Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. United States, and his fight for justice as part of that shared history.

Background on Korematsu v. United States: Fred Korematsu refused to enter the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans in 1942. Convicted of defying the government’s order, he appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him. In 1983, a pro bono team including the Asian Law Caucus reopened his case, and a federal court in San Francisco overturned his conviction. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, and in 2010, California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first U.S. day named after an Asian American.