Co-sponsored Event
Join us for a panel discussion with Eric Muller, Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law, for a discussion on his latest book, "Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe: Complicity and Conscience in America's World War II Concentration Camps."
The book highlights the contradictory instructions given to lawyers: to provide legal counsel to the prisoners while also keeping the concentration camps running. This struggle leads the lawyers to make difficult moral decisions that reveal the complex nature of their role in upholding the unjust system. As we delve into the stories of these lawyers, we are confronted with the harsh reality of how the legal system and government institutions can be used to perpetrate injustice and systemic racism.
Key discussion points:
Examining one of the most shameful episodes of American history, when 120,000 Japanese Americans, the bulk of them American citizens, were incarcerated behind barbed wire in isolated desert camps;
How the legal system, government institutions and lawyers acting within them can end up upholding injustice and violations of the Constitution; and
The lessons that the actions and inaction of lawyers during WWII incarceration hold for the legal profession and the roles and responsibilities of lawyers in confronting issues that raise similar moral and legal concern today.
Panelists:
Vincent Eng, Adjunct Professor at American University Washington College of Law and Deputy Director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
Rhea Fernandes, Deputy Associate Counsel at The White House
Shirley Higuchi, Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and former President of the D.C. Bar
Eric Muller, Author and Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law
