Seattle University’s Korematsu Center Seeks Social Justice

Seattle University’s Korematsu Center Seeks Social Justice: As a young lawyer in the early 1980s, Lorraine Bannai was convinced Fred Korematsu’s civil rights case was about more than just a man who refused to report to an internment camp during World War II. To Bannai and her colleagues, the case was about social justice for all Americans during times of peace as well as conflict.

This theme also informs Bannai’s work as a Seattle University educator today. As a director of its Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, she helps lead faculty and researchers trying to empower politically and socially disadvantaged populations.

Since its 2008 inception, the Center, which is based at the Seattle University School of Law, has launched a project studying ways to combat minority vote dilution and an initiative aimed at improving public defense representation in courts for indigent people accused of misdemeanors.