Minoru Yasui

was an American lawyer from Oregon. Born in Hood River, Oregon, he earned both an undergraduate degree and his law degree at the University of Oregon. He was one of the few Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor who fought laws that directly targeted Japanese Americans or Japanese immigrants. His case was the first case to test the constitutionality of the curfews targeted at minority groups.

Yasui's case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, where his conviction for breaking curfew was affirmed. After internment during most of World War II, he moved to Denver, Colorado in 1944. In Denver, Yasui married and became a local leader in civic affairs, including leadership positions in the Japanese American Citizens League. In 1986, his criminal conviction was overturned by the federal court.

In 2015, Senator Mazie K. Hirono nominated Yasui for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. On November 16, 2015, President Barack Obama announced that Yasui would receive a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal was presented to Laurie Yasui in a White House ceremony on November 24, where he became the first Presidential Medal of Freedom winner from Oregon.

Early life Born in Hood River, Oregon, on October 19, 1916, The third son of nine children born to this fruit-farming family, he graduated from the local high school in Hood River in 1933. At the age of eight he spent a summer in Japan, and later was enrolled in a Japanese language school in Oregon for three years. Yasui went on to college after high school at the University of Oregon in Eugene. ROTC was a requirement of all male students during this time period for the first two years of the four-year program. He began practicing law in Portland, Oregon in 1939. He first asked an officer on the street to arrest him but was told to "Run along home, sonny boy," and so he walked into the police station. Gus J. Solomon, later a judge for the same court, had asked the national American Civil Liberties Union to defend Yasui as no local Oregon groups elected to support Yasui. A bronze bust of Yasui adorns the building's foyer.

The University of Oregon dedicated Yasui Hall in June 2024.