And Justice for All (Except Us)

By Honorable Raymond S. Uno, retired Third District Court Judge.

For me, Brown v. Board of Education was a significant case. It was one the engines that propelled the civil rights movement throughout the country. Raised in Ogden, Utah before WW II, our family moved to El Monte, California in 1938 where I was enrolled in a segregated school of about 500 Mexicans and a handful of Japanese. On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. For people of Japanese ancestry, curfew was imposed between the hours of 8 pm to 6 am and a travel restriction of no travel beyond a 5 mile radius from our homes. Although my father was an American citizen and a veteran of the American Expeditionary Forces to France during WWI, the FBI came and thoroughly searched our house, taking whatever documents and material they thought important. I do not know if they had a search and seizure warrant.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced removal of persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. No criminal charge was filed, no counsel appointed, no trial held, no conviction entered, no sentence or appeal provided. In other words, there was no due process or equal protection under the law. I spent the next 3 plus years in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming concentration camp where my father died on January 21, 1943. As youths in these camps, ironically, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance when our classes started. When we came to the last phrase, we jokingly used to say "and justice for all" and would whisper, "except us."

Our jokes were substantiated by a harsh legal reality. In 1944, the United States Supreme Court held in Korematsu v. U.S. that it was constitutional to displace people in the name of national security. A year later, the Court upheld the curfew laws imposed on Japanese Americans in Hirabayashi v. U.S and Yasui v. US. On January 26, 1984, a federal District Court in Oregon granted the government's motion to vacate Yasui's conviction and dismiss the coram nobis petition. However the petitioner died in November 1986 before the appeal was decided. These cases raised a very interesting question: How is our government to determine which of its citizens are loyal? Currently, with the passage of the Patriot Act, I am not sure our rights as American citizens will be protected from the government. Having experienced what I have, I have some serious doubts.

In 1953, after 4 years of military service as a Korean War Veteran (non combat in 44lst Counter Intelligence Corp), I enrolled at the University of Utah on the GI Bill. In 1954, I wrote a paper for my economic's class at the "U" on Employment Opportunities for Minorities in Salt Lake City. I interviewed people at the employment office, personnel directors at city government, retail stores, public utilities and banks. Very few had any minorities employed. A few had custodians but none had any who had customer contact or any type of meaningful work. A few years later, a group of us formed the Utah Citizens Committee for Civil Rights which included all the known groups involved in civil rights. We feverishly lobbied the state legislature to pass fair employment, fair housing, and fair public accommodations laws. We also pushed to repeal the anti-miscegenation statute. We tried for several years but failed. Only after the federal courts and government issued a mandate did Utah laws begin to change, and very slowly and grudgingly at that. Among people pushing for civil rights in Utah at that time, Utah was referred to as the Mississippi of the North. Has there been any meaningful change?

In the latter 1950s, and most of the 1960s, there were few minority attorneys. I think Mas Yano, Jimi Mitsunaga, Hank Adams, Ken

Hisatake and I were the only minorities members of the Utah State Bar. Realizing the dearth of minority professionals, most of the various civil rights groups pushed for opening educational opportunities for minority youth. The progression was the following scenario: getting more minority youth to graduate from high school, to apply to college and to get into college. But we found getting them into college was insufficient. Once in college, we had to make sure they graduated. Thereafter came the challenge of getting them into graduate schools. After getting them into graduate school, we again had to keep them in school and help them graduate. After all of that we learned getting them employment after graduation was just as difficult. It was a slow, arduous and painful process.

The legal profession had, and still has, a reputation for being very conservative. Opening the doors of the legal profession was not easy. Although we labored very hard to shed light on the plight of minority lawyers to the Bar and the various firms and governmental agencies, I think it fell on deaf years. I doubt anyone in the profession currently recalls many of the minority lawyers or the problems they had at that time. Progress seemed somewhat infinitesimal, primarily because we were a very small and powerless group. However, in 1965, Utah Attorney General Phil Hansen hired Ken Hisatake, Hank Adams and myself as assistant attorneys generals. Also that year Jimi Mitsunaga started the Legal Defender Association and became its first director.

On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was another shot-in-the-arm for civil rights. Slowly diversity became more creditable. Employers in the more progressive states began hiring minority lawyers because it made political and economic sense. It made political and economic sense because minorities were becoming a viable political and economic entity nationally. However, around that time, in Utah, minorities still constituted less than 5% of the population so there was scant interest in diversity.

During the seventies, and eighties in Utah , more minorities began entering law school and graduating. There were minority law faculty members, a sprinkling of minority lawyers working for government agencies and some firms. The nineties saw a robust proliferation of minority lawyers, primarily in Salt Lake City. The law schools had a significant number of minorities enrolled and graduating. Although a good number of minority graduates were entering the job market, employment was scarce. Initially they were not sought after. Slowly they began to be accepted. Now, there is a more positive attitude toward recruiting qualified minority lawyers. Many legal opportunities for firms and governmental agencies require contract applicants, thus, firms and governmental agencies have implemented diversity policies, a powerful hammer to enforce compliance. Otherwise, embracing diversity may still be a reluctant option.

The idea of a Utah Minority Bar Association (UMBA) was conceived around 1991 or 1992. The primary purpose for establishing UMBA was to help minority lawyers as a unified group. In the past, the powers that be in the legal profession had paid little or no attention to the plight of minority lawyers. We were tolerated but not recognized as part and parcel of the legal community. To wit: second class lawyers. Because of a combination of circumstances, after the formation of the UMBA, we requested and met with the Bar Commissioners and eventually UMBA was able to get representation on the Bar Commission as a nonvoting member. We formed an alliance with minority community organizations and pressed hard but resourcefully to get more minority lawyers into law firms, government agencies and appointed as judges. Although UMBA was not solely responsible for the opening of many doors, we did help, in my opinion, open more doors than most people realize. Until UMBA was established, there was no legal or community organization espousing the cause for minority lawyers in an organized and concerted manner. We now have minority attorneys working as judges, as counsel in both large and small firms, corporations and as law professors. There are a handful of minority partners in firms.

One of UMBA's goals is to work itself out of existence. I hope the day comes that we do not longer need a UMBA. A dream? I hope not. As I reminisce, much progress has been made. We have minority lawyers in almost every field of practice of law in this community. This progress will continue to expand. But there are still many subtle and grinding obstacles that must be hurdled, such as passing a somewhat innocuous Hate Crimes Bill in Utah. One day in the near future, I hope we can look back with pride and say, "We have done the best we could with what we had. We are a better profession for the progress we made. We helped create a better community for everyone to live in because we all made many sacrifices to implement diversity." With this progress and hope, Brown v. Board of Education was one of the pivotal forces that made life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and equal protection under the law a reality for all, even minorities.

Utah Minority Bar Association
c/o Utah State Bar, Law & Justice Center
645 South 200 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3834
mailto: umbalaw@utahbar.org