A Japanese-American lawyer who, despite being blocked by law from getting his license, successfully defeated a statute preventing foreign-born residents from owning property is now a bar member, albeit posthumously.
The California Supreme Court by administrative order granted membership to Sei Fujii. The 1911 University of Southern California law graduate was prevented from getting his bar card under then-state law prohibiting foreign-born persons from practicing law unless they were eligible for citizenship, and Fujii was ineligible under federal law because of his race. The state Supreme Court in 1933 upheld the bar’s restriction.
“Despite being formally excluded from joining the ...
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