Type Non-Profit Website korematsuinstitute.org | Founded 2009 | |
Key people Karen Korematsu, Co-Founder Ling Woo Liu, Director | ||
The Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education is a non-profit organization which advances pan-ethnic civil rights and human rights through education.
History
In 1942, Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to be incarcerated in the government's WWII incarceration camps for Japanese-American citizens. He appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him, saying the incarceration was justified due to military necessity. Forty years later, the discovery of new evidence allowed Korematsu to re-open his case with a team of pro-bono lawyers. In 1983, a federal court in San Francisco overturned Korematsu's conviction.
In 1998, Korematsu received from Bill Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. Korematsu died in 2005 at the age of 86.
In 2009, the Asian Law Caucus, together with Fred's daughter, Karen Korematsu, launched the Korematsu Institute to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reversal of Korematsu’s conviction.
The Institute's members advocated for the designation of January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution in California, and the legislature approved this in 2010. This was the first day in US history to be named after an Asian American.
To mark the first Fred Korematsu Day on January 30, 2011 the Korematsu Institute began shipping out free Korematsu teaching kits to K-12 classrooms around California and held a commemorative event at UC Berkeley. Each year on Fred Korematsu Day the organization honors Japanese Americans who have contributed to the advancement of civil rights.
In 2014, the Institute partnered with the San Joaquin County Office of Education to provide professional development for teachers on several civil rights topics, and was awarded a grant of $180,836.