USC President Carol Folt will award posthumous degrees and apologize to the students of Japanese descent whose schooling was interrupted when they and their families were forcibly displaced and put into concentration camps.

The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, formed by organizations, college administrators and several Quaker religious groups, encouraged schools in other parts of the country to accept students of Japanese descent, most of whom were children of Japanese immigrants, known as nisei. .

Schools on the West Coast released the students’ transcripts, helping many students graduate from other colleges, said Brian Niiya, the content director of Densho, a nonprofit Japanese American history and education organization. .

But some who wanted to continue their studies found that schools like USC stood in their way, Niiya said.

Not only were many USC students forced to abandon their studies during the war, but when Japanese American students tried to re-enroll at USC or obtain their transcripts afterward, they were also allegedly told to start their college educations over again.

were supporters of the incarceration or the removal of Japanese Americans,” Niiya said.

Niiya said USC’s newest efforts to make amends are the result of the Japanese American redress movement that began in the 1970s

Folt said the university is working with several Japanese American community organizations to find the families of former USC students and is calling on the public to help

Even though the ceremony comes 80 years after the students were forced to leave school, Niiya said, it is an important step in both healing and moving forward. 

“For individual families, it’s really important in many cases that the grandparents or great grandparents are getting this posthumous recognition,” Niiya said