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Ceremony set for interned Japanese American students

ºÙºÙÊÓƵ has scheduled a ceremony Dec. 12 to recognize Japanese American students who had their educations derailed by World War II internments. The location has not yet been determined; keep checking for an update.

The UC system comprised four campuses at the time of the internment order — Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles and San Francisco — and each is organizing a ceremony in December or in the spring to award honorary degrees to the affected former students. Meanwhile, UC continues its search for students interned during World War II; the campuses want to honor as many people as possible and are still seeking potential recipients.

During the ceremonies, the campuses also plan to acknowledge former students who were interned but returned to UC to finish their degrees.

The UC Board of Regents voted last summer to authorize the honorary degrees. About 700 students withdrew from UC in 1942 when the government ordered their internment — sending them to camps with more than 120,000 other Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

Former students who may be eligible, their families or friends are encouraged to contact individual UC campuses about receiving honorary degrees.

Harry Mok, a principal editor in the UC Office of the President's Integrated Communications group, contributed to this report.

Media Resources

Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu

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