Don Nakanishi

After World War II, Don Nakanishi's parents mostly kept silent about the past. During the war, the government locked up 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps. The Nakanishis were among 17,000 Southern Californians held in Posten, Ariz., for more than two years. But the U.S. was also the country where the Nakanishis' two boys were born and raised after the war. And they didn't want their sons to see their native land as intolerant. "My parents wanted to shelter us," said Nakanishi, now 60. "They wanted to give us a more hopeful perspective of what America stood for."

After World War II, Don Nakanishi's parents mostly kept silent about the past. During the war, the government locked up 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps. The Nakanishis were among 17,000 Southern Californians held in Posten, Ariz., for more than two years. But the U.S. was also the country where the Nakanishis' two boys were born and raised after the war. And they didn't want their sons to see their native land as intolerant. "My parents wanted to shelter us," said Nakanishi, now 60. "They wanted to give us a more hopeful perspective of what America stood for."

About 350 supporters of UCLA professor Don Nakanishi assembled at the Westwood campus Thursday, calling for immediate tenure for the education instructor. Representatives of a broad range of mainly minority student groups voiced support for Nakanishi, who hopes to become the first tenured Asian-American in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. Nakanishi was first denied tenure in the fall of 1987, and his supporters have maintained that racism has played a role in the handling of the case.

He heard voices through the walls. The raucous, disembodied sound startled him, then fixed him to his chair. "We are all agreed that he has the potential for greatness, perhaps. All of his outside review letters are good." But "how do we know that if we give him tenure he won't go out and do something crazy?" This was no psychotic episode. Prof. Reginald Clark had a firm grip on reality, he says, and he realized that the voices belonged to people he knew at the Claremont Graduate School.

Ending a 3-year-old cause celebre in the Asian-American community, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young announced Thursday that he is granting tenure at the Graduate School of Education to Don Nakanishi. Young's decision means that Nakanishi, an expert on Asian-American affairs, could have a lifetime appointment. The move caps an unusual campaign of petitions, letter writing and lobbying on Nakanishi's behalf by supporters who claimed that he had been a victim of racial prejudice and overly conservative scholarly standards when he was denied tenure earlier.

To his supporters, Don Nakanishi is a fine teacher and scholar who has produced important research in Asian-American affairs and surely deserves a tenured position at UCLA's Graduate School of Education. To his detractors, Nakanishi is someone who is trying to mask weakness in his scholarship with allegations of racism.

He heard voices through the walls. The raucous, disembodied sound startled him, then fixed him to his chair. "We are all agreed that he has the potential for greatness, perhaps. All of his outside review letters are good." But "how do we know that if we give him tenure he won't go out and do something crazy?" This was no psychotic episode. Prof. Reginald Clark had a firm grip on reality, he says, and he realized that the voices belonged to people he knew at the Claremont Graduate School.

About 400 UCLA students protested Wednesday what organizers called "a well-coordinated plan of attacks by the university" against affirmative action and ethnic studies programs on the Westwood campus. Students representing more than 30 campus organizations gathered at noon on the steps of Campbell Hall, which houses the school's ethnic studies program, holding signs that said "Diversity or Racism" and "Tenure for Minority Faculty Now!"

Individuals and organizations will be recognized for their contributions to the Asian Pacific community at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center's fourth annual awards dinner at 7 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Empress Pavilion Restaurant in Chinatown. Judy Chu, mayor pro tem of Monterey Park, will receive the public service award. The corporate award will go to William Clossey, an AT&T vice president, and the legal impact award to Don Nakanishi.

University spending: An article in Sunday's Section A about California universities' use of money meant for classrooms and student services said a building purchased by a foundation affiliated with Cal State Sacramento was empty. According to a school spokeswoman, about a dozen events including lectures and a faculty retreat have been held in the 188,000-square-foot building since January. The article also misstated Jesse Bernal's title. He is the University of California student regent, not UCLA student regent.

Ending a 3-year-old cause celebre in the Asian-American community, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young announced Thursday that he is granting tenure at the Graduate School of Education to Don Nakanishi. Young's decision means that Nakanishi, an expert on Asian-American affairs, could have a lifetime appointment. The move caps an unusual campaign of petitions, letter writing and lobbying on Nakanishi's behalf by supporters who claimed that he had been a victim of racial prejudice and overly conservative scholarly standards when he was denied tenure earlier.

About 350 supporters of UCLA professor Don Nakanishi assembled at the Westwood campus Thursday, calling for immediate tenure for the education instructor. Representatives of a broad range of mainly minority student groups voiced support for Nakanishi, who hopes to become the first tenured Asian-American in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. Nakanishi was first denied tenure in the fall of 1987, and his supporters have maintained that racism has played a role in the handling of the case.

To his supporters, Don Nakanishi is a fine teacher and scholar who has produced important research in Asian-American affairs and surely deserves a tenured position at UCLA's Graduate School of Education. To his detractors, Nakanishi is someone who is trying to mask weakness in his scholarship with allegations of racism.

Peter H. King's slam against UC Regent Ward Connerly is just incredible (March 16). Connerly is surely one of the honorable, genuine democrats in American history. His motivations are transparent to any objective person. He is devoted, and is willing to take on hate from today's anti-democratic forces, who mostly come from the left. His ideas come straight from the Declaration of Independence, and the wording of the California Civil Rights Initiative is copied from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So where is the mystery?

George Aratani, a Los Angeles businessman who donated millions of dollars to Japanese American causes, and with his wife endowed the nation's first academic chair to study the World War II internment of people of Japanese descent and their efforts to gain redress, has died. He was 95. An entrepreneur who founded the Mikasa china and Kenwood electronics firms, Aratani died Tuesday at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center of complications of pneumonia, his daughter Linda Aratani said. He had lived at the Keiro nursing facility in Lincoln Heights since last summer.