BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1775
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 5, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1775 (Furutani) - As Amended: April 27, 2010
SUBJECT : Public schools: Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties
and the Constitution
SUMMARY : Designates January 30 of each year as Fred Korematsu
Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, a day of special
significance. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes Legislative findings and declarations regarding the
life, career, contributions and death of Fred Korematsu, as
well as his life-long fight for the constitutional rights and
civil liberties for all.
2)Adds January 30 of each year as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil
Liberties and the Constitution to the list of days having
special significance.
3)Encourages all public schools and educational institutions to
observe this day and conduct exercises remembering the life of
Fred Korematsu and recognizing the importance of preserving
civil liberties, even in times of real or perceived crisis.
4)Requires the Governor to annually proclaim January 30 as Fred
Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution.
EXISTING LAW
1)Requires public schools to close on or for a number of
holidays, including, January 1, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Day, Lincoln Day, Washington Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor
Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, December 25, all days
appointed by the Governor or the President for a public fast,
thanksgiving or holiday, and any other day designated as a
holiday by the governing board of the school district.
2)Requires, for some specified holidays for which schools are
required to close, that schools conduct exercises or
instruction that focus students on the purpose of that
holiday.
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3)Authorizes public schools to close on or for a number of other
holidays, if the governing board pursuant to an agreement
under collective bargaining agrees; these days include Cesar
Chavez Day and Native American Day. Also authorizes public
schools to conduct exercises or instruction that focus
students on the purpose of these holidays.
4)Requires public schools to remain open, and celebrate specific
holidays with appropriate commemorative exercises, including
the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States, the birthday of Luther Burbank, Susan B.
Anthony Day, and the anniversary of the death of Crispus
Attucks (Black American Day).
5)Designates a number of days as days having special
significance, when public schools are encouraged to observe
and conduct suitable commemorative exercises, as specified.
These days include the Day of the Teacher, John Muir Day,
California Poppy Day, Harvey Milk Day, and Welcome Home
Vietnam Veterans Day.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed non-fiscal.
COMMENTS : The author states that, "The Fifth and the
Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution both
guarantee a right to due process. During World War II, these
rights were violated because of ancestry and color when
Americans of Japanese ancestry were denied the fundamental right
to notice of any criminal charges, the right to attorneys and
the right to a trial when they were ordered to live in
concentration camps." In addition, the author states that,
"Fred T. Korematsu - an American citizen of Japanese descent who
lived in California - refused to comply with Civilian Exclusion
Order 34. On May 30, 1942, Korematsu was arrested and charged
with violating the military's exclusion order. Korematsu was
convicted by a federal court." According to the author, "Judge
Marilyn Hall Patel's decision to overturn the Supreme Court
decision in Fred T. Korematsu's 1944 conviction is a milestone
for modern civil rights. Executive Order 9066 demonstrates a
threat to civil liberties in the United States during modern
history and serves as a reminder that threats to civil liberties
still exist today.
Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (January 30, 1919 - March 30, 2005)
was one of the approximately 120,000 Japanese-American citizens
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and permanent residents living on the west coast of the United
States at the outbreak of World War II, who were removed from
the communities in which they lived and imprisoned in internment
camps without due process. More than 2/3 of the individuals of
Japanese ancestry who were imprisoned in the spring of 1942 were
citizens of the United States. Korematsu was born in Oakland
and resided there continuously until 1942; he attended public
schools, including Castlemont High School, from which he
graduated in 1937. He worked in his family's rose nursery in
nearby San Leandro, California, and later became a master welder
working in the Oakland shipyards. He lost his employment
because of his ancestry after the United States' entry into
World War II in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
authorized the forced relocation and internment of "any or all
persons" with Executive Order 9066, which allowed local military
commanders to designate "exclusion zones," from which
individuals could be excluded. On March 27, 1942, General John
L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Area, prohibited
Japanese Americans from leaving the limits of Military Area No.
1, effectively the entire Pacific coast including all of
California and most of Oregon and Washington, in preparation for
their eventual removal to internment camps. On May 3, 1942,
DeWitt ordered Japanese Americans to report on May 9 to Assembly
Centers, which included Tanforan and Santa Anita race tracks
where internees were housed in horse stalls; internees were
later removed to one of ten internment camps, the majority of
which were located in the high desert or mountains of the
interior West, where they were held behind barbed-wire fences
guarded by armed military personnel and were housed in,
according to the War Relocation Authority, "tarpaper-covered
barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or
cooking facilities of any kind." Heating fuel was scarce, and
food, rationed out at a daily expense of 48 cents per internee,
was served by fellow internees in a mess hall seating 250-300
people.
Fred Korematsu refused the evacuation order and went into hiding
in the Oakland area; he was later arrested in San Leandro on May
30, 1942. He was subsequently held in the stockade at the San
Francisco Presidio for more than two months, was held at the
Tanforan Assembly Center, was tried and convicted of violating
the military orders issued under Executive Order 9066 in federal
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court on September 8, 1942, and was eventually moved with his
family to the internment camp at Topaz, Utah. During his trial
he was defended by an attorney from the northern California
branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. His case was
appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which upheld the original
verdict in January of 1944, and to the United States Supreme
Court, which in a 6-3 decision issued in December of 1944 held
that compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, is
justified during circumstances of "emergency and peril". In
1944, two and a half years after signing Executive Order 9066,
fourth-term President Franklin D. Roosevelt rescinded the order,
and the last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945.
After release from camp, Korematsu moved to Salt Lake City and
later to Detroit, Michigan; subsequently he resettled in the
Oakland area.
In the 1980s, after President Jimmy Carter rekindled national
interest in the internment by appointing a special commission to
investigate the plight of Japanese-Americans during World War
II, researchers in California uncovered evidence that the
Solicitor General of the United States, who argued Korematsu v.
United States before the Supreme Court, had deliberately
suppressed reports from the FBI and military intelligence which
concluded that Japanese-American citizens posed no security
risk, that the military had lied to the Supreme Court, and that
government lawyers had knowingly and willingly made false
arguments.
In 1983, as a result of this evidence, the U.S. District Court
in San Francisco formally vacated Korematsu's conviction.
Korematsu in a statement to U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel
said, "I would like to see the government admit that they were
wrong and do something about it so this will never happen again
to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color." He
continued, "If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the
one pardoning the government for what they did to the
Japanese-American people."
In 1988, Congress passed, and President Ronald Reagan signed,
legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the
United States government and awarded formal payments of $20,000
each to the surviving internees-60,000 in all. In 1998
Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
highest civilian honor in the United States; in making the
award, President Bill Clinton said, "In the long history of our
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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." Throughout the latter part of his life, Fred
Korematsu continued to speak out in favor of the protection of
constitutional rights and civil liberties, and against issues
such as racial profiling. After September 11, 2001 when some
Americans of Middle-Eastern descent were being detained or
arrested, and when other prisoners were detained at Guantanamo
Bay for a long period of time, Korematsu filed a
friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court and warned the
Justices not to repeat the mistakes of the Japanese internment.
Fred Korematsu said that "No one should ever be locked away
simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion
as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from
the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very
dangerous times for our democracy." Nearing the end of his life
he offered this advice: "protest, but not with violence, and
don't be afraid to speak up. One person can make a difference,
even if it takes forty years."
This bill requires the Governor to proclaim January 30 as Fred
Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, and
designates January 30 as a day having special significance.
This bill does not result in additional average daily attendance
or funding for a school district, nor does it result in an
additional holiday or day of school closure. The designation of
a day of special significance simply triggers statutory
encouragement for public schools to observe the day and to
conduct commemorative exercises suitable to the day, as
specified in law; however, the decision as to whether to observe
any day of significance or to conduct suitable commemorative
exercises is left to the local district. If this day is
observed, then suitable exercises would recognize Fred
Korematsu's life and accomplishments, as well as the
contributions that he made to this state and country.
Committee amendments: In recent years, multiple bills have been
introduced proposing to establish a specified date as a day of
special significance under the law. For example, in 2009 two
bills were introduced and ultimately chaptered, and in the
current year four bills are pending in the Legislature. Due to
the structure of the Education Code section within which the day
of special significance provisions exist, multiple bills
introduced in a single legislative year creates technical
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conflicts which are difficult, and sometimes contentious, to
resolve. Committee staff recommends that this bill be amended
in order to restructure these provisions of the Education Code
so as to avoid these technical conflicts both this year and in
the future. At the same time this restructuring will clean up
previous approaches used to avoid the technical conflict. These
amendments will not have an effect on the content (or the
intent) of this bill or of existing provisions of code, but will
simply restructure these provisions.
Related legislation: AB 2412 (Tran), pending in the Assembly
Education Committee, designates February 6 of each year as
Ronald Reagan Day, a day of special significance. SB 944
(Runner and Strickland), pending in the Assembly, is
substantially similar to AB 2412. SB 1256 (Hancock), pending on
the Senate Floor, designates January 23 of each year as Ed
Roberts Day, a day of special significance.
Previous legislation: SB 572 (Leno), Chapter 626, Statutes of
2009, designates May 22 of each year as Harvey Milk Day, a day
of special significance. AB 717 (Cook), Chapter 158, Statutes
of 2009, designates March 30 or each year as Welcome Home
Vietnam Veterans Day, as day of special significance. AB 2567
(Leno), vetoed in 2008, was substantially similar to SB 572. SB
984 (Polanco), Chapter 213, Statutes of 2000, establishes March
31 as "Cesar Chavez Day," establishes the Cesar Chavez Day of
Service and Learning grant program, which provided grants for
activities that engaged school pupils in community service on
that day. AB 1953 (Baca), Chapter 637, Statutes of 1998 ,
establishes "Native American Day," authorizes public school
governing boards to close for this holiday (pursuant to a
collective bargaining agreement), and authorizes school
districts to conduct exercises or instruction that focuses
students on the contributions of Native Americans to this
country. SB 1373 (Torres), Chapter 1011, Statutes of 1994,
authorizes public school governing boards to close for "Cesar
Chavez Day" (pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement). SB
2410 (Rogers), Chapter 364, Statutes of 1990, establishes the
current list of days having special significance, when public
schools are encouraged to observe and conduct suitable
commemorative exercises, as specified.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
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American Civil Liberties Union
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area
Asian American Justice Center
Asian Law Caucus
Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County
Asian Pacific American Law Student Association
Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California
Asian/Pacific Bar Association of Sacramento
Chinese for Affirmative Action
Council of American Islamic Relations-California
Equal Justice Society
Filipino American Lawyers of San Diego
Filipino Bar Association of Northern California
Go For Broke National Education Center
Japanese American Bar Association of Greater Los Angeles
Japanese American Citizens League; Pacific Southwest District
Japanese American Museum of San Jose
Japanese American National Museum
Korean American Bar Association of Southern California
Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education at the Asian
Law Caucus
Muslim Public Affairs Council
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
Orange County Asian American Bar Association
Organization of Chinese Americans
Organization of Chinese Americans - Orange County
Organization of Chinese Americans - Silicon Valley Chapter
Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego
Philippine American Bar Association of Los Angeles
San Francisco Japanese American Citizens League
South Asian Bar Association of Northern California
Southwest Center for Asian Pacific American Law
The Sikh Coalition
Thomas Jefferson School of Law's Asian Pacific American Law
Student Association
Ventura County Asian American Bar Association
Watsonville-Santa Cruz Chapter of the National Japanese American
Citizens League
Numerous individuals
Opposition
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None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087