California Education Code

§ 13000

EDC § 13000 Effective Jan 1, 2022Div. 1 · Title 1 · Part 8.5 · Ch. 1

Statute text

(a)This part shall be known and may be cited as the California Civil Liberties Public Education Act. The purpose of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Act is to sponsor public educational activities and the development of educational materials to ensure that the events surrounding the exclusion, forced removal, and internment of citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry will be remembered, and so that the causes and circumstances of this and similar events may be illuminated and understood.

(b)The Legislature finds and declares that the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was established by Congress in 1980 to “review the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order 9066, issued in February 19, 1942, and the impact of such Executive Order on American citizens and permanent residents... and to recommend appropriate remedies.” The CWRIC issued a report of its findings in 1983 with the reports “Personal Justice Denied” and “Personal Justice Denied-Part II, Recommendations.” The reports were based on information gathered “through 20 days of hearings in cities across the country, particularly the West Coast, hearing testimony from more than 750 witnesses: evacuees, former government officials, public figures, interested citizens, and historians and other professionals who have studied the subjects of Commission inquiry.”

(c)The lessons to be learned from the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are embodied in “Personal Justice Denied-Part II, Recommendations.” The CWRIC concluded as follows: “In sum, Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions that followed from it-exclusion, detention, the ending of detention and the ending of exclusion-were not founded upon military considerations. The broad historical causes that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance about Americans of Japanese descent contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. A grave personal injustice was done to the American citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II.”

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Legislative history

Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 296, Sec. 13. (AB 1096) Effective January 1, 2022.