Opinion: Fred Korematsu Day in Irvine is an Occasion for Reflection on the State of Our Civil Liberties–And Action to Defend Them

• January 27, 2026, 1:00 am America/Los_Angeles

“One person can make a difference, even if it takes forty years.”

– Fred Korematsu

Friday, January 30, is Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. The day was officially recognized by the Irvine City Council in a resolution introduced by Councilmember Kathleen Tresder, seconded by Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco, and passed unanimously on October 14, 2025. The day honors the life and legacy of the American citizen who fought the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans all the way to the United States Supreme Court. It’s also an occasion for reflection on the current civil liberties crisis in the United States, and for action to defend those liberties. 

Fred Korematsu: An American Hero

Fred Korematsu was an American citizen born in Oakland, California, on January 30, 1919, the third of four sons of Japanese immigrant parents. In his youth, Fred helped in the family nursery business. He attended Castlemont High School in Oakland, where he was a member of the tennis and swim teams. While a student at Castlemont, he encountered a U.S. Army recruiter who told him, “We have orders not to accept you.”  Korematsu subsequently received a draft notice pursuant to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. However, he was rejected by the U.S. Navy, ostensibly for physical reasons, which he believed to be a pretext for discrimination based on his Japanese ancestry.   

Korematsu then underwent training to become a welder to contribute to national defense in a civilian capacity. He found employment as a welder at the Oakland shipyard, but soon was informed that he could not work there due to his Japanese ancestry. Another welding job was also short-lived, and Korematu was unable to find any employment in the aftermath of the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Japan formally declared war on the United States later in the day of the attack, and the U.S. Congress declared war on Japan the following day. Ten weeks later, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Department of War to designate military zones from which persons of “enemy” ancestry would be excluded. Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt issued 108 Civilian Exclusion Orders and directives to implement the Executive Order throughout the West Coast.

Under DeWitt’s orders, on March 24, 1942, all West Coast individuals of Japanese ancestry were instructed to report to Assembly Centers, where they would be imprisoned until permanent concentration camps were completed. Other members of the Korematsu family complied. Fred declined, later explaining: 

“[T]o be pushed into evacuation, threatened with punishment, because you look like the enemy is wrong… I felt that I was an American citizen and I had as much rights as anyone else. I don’t even have ties with Japan nor have I ever been there. To be accused like this, I just thought it wasn’t fair. It was wrong.”  

Fred Korematsu was arrested on a San Leandro street corner on May 30, 1942, and subsequently charged with “remain[ing] in that portion of Military Area No.1 covered by Civilian Exclusion Order no.34.” While awaiting trial, he was confined to Tanforan Racetrack, the assembly center where his family was incarcerated. On September 8, 1942, he was convicted of the charges in federal court and was placed on probation for five years. He and his family were subsequently transferred from Tanforan to the Topaz camp in Utah. 

Meanwhile, Korematsu had accepted an offer by the American Civil Liberties Union to make his case a test case to challenge the constitutionality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans. The case was argued before the United States Supreme Court on October 11, 1944. On December 18, 1944, the Court issued its decision in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214. The Court was split 6-3, with the majority holding that the challenged evacuation order was justified by a military necessity not based on race.

Justice Robert Jackson (who would later serve as the chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany) wrote a dissenting opinion that began as follows: 

“Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity, and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here, he is not law-abiding and well- disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.”

Although the Korematsu case has been denounced widely as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, it has never been expressly overruled. Nonetheless, in 1982, the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians issued a report concluding that each part of the decision had been discredited: “Today, the decision in Korematsu lies overruled in the court of history.”

Meanwhile, UC San Diego Professor Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga discovered secret Justice Department documents showing that the government had withheld from the Supreme Court findings by the FBI and other agencies that Japanese Americans had not engaged in any misconduct, contrary to the government’s “military necessity” argument. Armed with this evidence, in 1983, a pro bono legal team successfully petitioned the trial court to reopen Korematsu’s case. On November 10, 1983, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco overturned Korematsu’s conviction, concluding that:

“Korematsu remains on the pages of our legal and political history. As a legal precedent it is now recognized as having very limited application. As historical precedent it stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. It stands as a caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability. It stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused.”

Following the overturning of his conviction, Fred Korematsu became active in the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, lobbying in Washington for passage of a bill granting an official apology and $20,000 in compensation for each surviving Japanese American who had been incarcerated. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on August 10, 1988. Ten years later, on January 15, 1998, President Bill Clinton presented Fred Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, stating: 

“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.”

Fred’s activism continued in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He cautioned that the federal government should not treat people of Middle Eastern descent as it treated Japanese Americans during World War II. In response to the prolonged detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, he filed two friend of the court briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging that the mistakes of Japanese American incarceration not be allowed to be repeated. 

Fred Korematsu died of respiratory failure on March 30, 2005, at the age of 86. In 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill designating January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day, making California the first state to recognize the date. 

Why Fred Korematsu Day Matters

In an email to the Irvine City Council, Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum, wrote: 

“At JANM, we believe that history is not only something to be preserved, but something to be lived, taught, and defended because memory is not passive. It is an act of resistance and a tool for resilience. This legislation will serve as a powerful reminder of Fred Korematsu’s contributions and the civil liberties we all must remain vigilant in protecting.”

This call for vigilance couldn’t be more timely, as we witness with horror the killing of American citizens by masked federal agents swarming the streets of Minneapolis, invading homes without judicial warrants, separating families, randomly accosting and interrogating people of color on the street, and often hauling them off to distant detention centers. Anyone who thinks it can’t happen in Irvine should ponder the fact that we are a city of immigrants, many of whom speak languages other than English. This alone makes us a potential target for a Homeland Security invasion.

If Fred Korematsu were alive today, he would be outspoken in opposition to such egregious violations of civil liberties. We can honor his legacy on Friday by reflecting on the lessons he taught us and seeking opportunities to carry on his work. For many of us, this will include joining demonstrations against Homeland Security abuses. For others, it might be a simple action like joining the American Civil Liberties Union.

As for me, I plan to spend part of Fred Korematsu Day listening to Rachel Maddow’s podcast Burn Order, which recounts the history of the Japanese American incarceration. And, in memory of slain Veterans Administration nurse Alex Pretti, I may join striking health care workers on the picket line at Kaiser Irvine Medical Center. I think Fred would approve.