UC Hastings Grants Honorary Degrees to WWII Internees

The May 15 graduation ceremony at the University of California Hastings College of the Law included a special honor. As Karen Sloan reports, Hastings granted honorary degrees to seven Japanese-American students who had been enrolled at the school during the early 1940s but were unable to complete their studies because they were interned or faced other hardships during World War II. “We think for a law school to do this is quite important,” Dean Frank Wu said. “It was quite touching.” According to the article, “The only honoree who the school was able to confirm was still alive — 92-year-old Clark Kuichi Saito — attended the commencement ceremony with his son, Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court Judge Timothy Saito. . . . According to the law school, 10 students of Japanese ancestry attended the school in 1942, the year President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order that authorized the roundup of Japanese-Americans into internment camps.”

 
Frank Wu is Chancellor and Dean at UC Hastinbgs.

KJ