Education Denied Indiana University’s Japanese American Ban, 1942 to 1945

Abstract

In February 1942, about 7,500 Nisei students—roughly 4,000 high school seniors and 3,500 enrolled college students—found themselves unable to continue their educations after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 authorized the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. During wartime, students of Japanese descent had limited options: remain incarcerated, join the military, or plea for acceptance into a college or university willing to enroll Japanese American students. These students looked eastward only to find that most schools, including Indiana University, were closed to them.

For almost four years, Indiana University administrators denied admission to Japanese Americans after its Board of Trustees, led by Ora L. Wildermuth, banned Nisei students from the university. University president Herman B Wells and other administrators often cloaked the exclusionary policy by quoting limitations on out-of-state students or decisions based on military necessity. The stories of the rejected applicants themselves remind us of the inequities faced by a generation of students who sought to rebuild their lives in the Midwest after being forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated.