Milpitas Unified proclaims Jan. 30 as Fred Korematsu Day

Milpitas Unified School District adopted Resolution 20 26 22 at its Jan. 27, 2026, meeting, proclaiming Jan. 30, 2026, as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution and encouraging schools to commemorate the day with ceremonies and educational programs.

Michelle, a member of the leadership team at the MHS Extension campus, read the resolution aloud at the meeting. "I'm here to read resolution 20 26 22, recognizing and honoring January 30 as Fred Korematsu day of civil liberties and the constitution," she said.

The reading summarized Korematsu’s life and legal history. It noted he was born Jan. 30, 1919, in Oakland to Japanese immigrant parents and that, in 1942 at age 23, he was arrested and convicted after refusing to comply with the government’s wartime incarceration orders for Japanese Americans. The resolution text stated Korematsu appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him at the time, and that decades later a federal judge in the Northern District of California (referred to in the reading as Judge Patel) vacated his conviction and acknowledged a grave injustice.

The text also recorded that Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 and that former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed state legislation establishing Fred Korematsu Day (cited in the reading as AB 1775) into law on Sept. 23, 2010. The resolution described the day as the first in U.S. history named for an Asian American.

The board’s action, recorded as having been "passed and adopted" at the Jan. 27 meeting, formalizes the district’s recognition and calls on educators to mark Jan. 30 with appropriate ceremonies and educational activities. The transcript supplies the resolution number as read aloud; the document and meeting record should be consulted for the district’s official archival citation and any accompanying materials.