<Begin Segment 7>
TI: I want to go back and talk a little bit about another, what I think are, for me, heroes. And those were, again, the young lawyers who did this. And when I talked with people at Seattle University, especially the law school, one of the things that -- and the reason they're doing this conference is they wanted to encourage young lawyers to take on some of these social causes. And they'll be different today than it was back in the '80s. What thoughts do you have in terms of, I mean, was what they did, was that extraordinary or was that something that you would think that young lawyers naturally should do? What's your thoughts about that?
MS: Well, there are always inspired young lawyers in our country. I think one of the wonderful things about our country is that we have, when we really needed them, had inspired young lawyers who understood that there are injustices that you try to correct. And I think, of course, these lawyers did that in the '80s. More recently we've had young lawyers and law students working to exonerate people who were are on death row who've been unjustly convicted. And there are people working in the immigration field now who are concerned about fairness. And so part of our country's history is that we've had recurrent... we've had issues that young lawyers have become concerned about and have done something about, and that's what lawyers are supposed to do. So I would hope that this will continue, and that these lawyers in the '80s are part of a tradition that will carry on throughout the country. There were abolitionists before the Civil War, and there were those who fought the jailing of Communists, and it's always lawyers, it's up to the lawyers to stand up, and often it's young lawyers who are inspired to do that, which is wonderful.
TI: I agree.
MS: It's a great tradition in our country.
TI: So I finished my questions. Any other thoughts? Any thoughts about the case, Gordon, that you want to share?
MS: About the case? Only that I was very fortunate to have been able to participate in that decision. The cases on our court are assigned kind of randomly, and this was something that I could not have dreamed of happening. I'm very grateful to my colleagues. I was not the senior judge on the panel to write the opinion, and I'm grateful to my senior colleague who permitted me the opportunity, and to my colleagues who joined, and to Gordon Hirabayashi for being a friend and for proving enrichment to my life and a better understanding of what our country's all about.
TI: One last question. You mentioned earlier how this case, getting to know the people changed you, or Gordon changed you. How did Gordon change you?
MS: Well, I think I am much more sensitive to what is going on around me and to the currents that are historical changes that we see. One episode I recall, I was on a program in Washington. It was in the Holocaust Museum, in fact, and it was a program devoted to the role that lawyers played in the rise of Nazi Germany. And the lawyers (and the judges essentially) went along and didn't stand up. And there was a panel discussion afterwards that I was a part of, and the question was asked, "Could that happen in this country?" And everyone said, "Oh, no, that (couldn't happen) here." And I said, "But you see, it did happen. It did happen in the internment." And the person who was on the panel from the Holocaust Museum said, "That's exactly right." And so when I see a kind of a passivity among Americans, the expression of the feeling, "Nothing like this could happen here," I think the internment and Gordon Hirabayashi's story for me is the refutation of that attitude, and I think that I will continue to try to discourage that attitude and rail against it for the rest of my life.
TI: Great answer, thank you.
<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.