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The nationwide Consortium of Asian Pacific American Law professors has recognized Eric Yamamoto, a professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law, for his long history of inspiring promising legal scholars, his own exemplary scholarly achievements and his abiding commitment to encouraging and mentoring promising emerging scholars.

The consortium created an annual award in his name—the Professor Eric Y. Yamamoto Emerging Scholar Award. The award will be given to an early-career law professor at any law school in the United States who demonstrates outstanding promise.

Yamamoto is an internationally renowned authority on issues of redress and reconciliation. He has written and spoken extensively about how healing the wounds of past injustice by “doing justice” now can reach deeply into a nation’s social fabric.

He served as a member of the Korematsu legal team that, in 1984, successfully challenged the constitutionality of the World War II incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans by the U.S. government.

Yamamoto inspires law students and beginning lawyers through the rigorous Scholar Advocates program he created to translate cutting-edge justice theories for front-line practice. He also does extensive work with new law teacher-scholars to encourage success throughout the arduous process of writing and publishing.

“This truly is a perfect fit—it rightfully honors Professor Yamamoto for his own extraordinary work in seeking restorative justice while it also celebrates and aids others who are following his exemplary professional career,” said UH School of Law Dean Avi Soifer.

Read about Yamamoto and his work on the Korematsu case in Mālamalama.

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