Professor Eric Adams receives John T. Saywell Prize

On June 22, 2022, the University of Alberta Faculty of Law Professor Eric Adams felt a mix of delight, humility and excitement as he and his long-time collaborator Jordan Stanger-Ross of the University of Victoria were presented the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Constitutional Legal History. 

“We’re thrilled to be joining an illustrious list of previous winners,” said Adams.

The award – presented by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History – recognizes research contributions to Canadian constitutional history over the previous two years. Adams and Stanger-Ross were recognized for their 2020 book Landscapes of Injustice: A New Perspective on the Internment and Dispossession of Japanese Canadians which was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. The book looks at the history of the internment and dispossession of Japanese-Canadians from multiple perspectives and disciplinary methods. 

During the 1940s, over 20,000 Japanese Canadians were forcibly uprooted from their homes, dispossessed of their property, and interned and incarcerated in the name of national security. Their homes, personal possessions and businesses were sold by the government to pay for their detention. After the Second World War ended, the government exiled nearly 4,000 Japanese Canadians to Japan.

As the head researcher of legal history for this collaboration, Adam’s contributions to the book focus mainly on the constitutional history of the legalized racism that Japanese-Canadians faced before, during and after the Second World War. His chapters delve into how Japanese-Canadians resisted and challenged those wrongs, and how the Canadian legal system failed to live up to the ideals of justice in crucial moments of Canada’s legal history.

“Jordan and I have long shared a historical interest in how race and racism, as well as challenges to racism, have operated within the Canadian state,” he said. “While researching for this project, we remained inspired by the community members who had either directly experienced the constitutional wrongs of dislocation, internment and exile, or who lived with the intergenerational consequences of those harms.”

When asked about  what he hopes members of Canada’s legal community will gain from the book, Adams points to an excerpt he wrote:

“True constitutional equality … can only succeed as a shared project of ideals encompassing judges and administrative officials, lawyers and litigants, citizens and residents. In times of real, perceived, or concocted emergency, that project can break down in the moment when we need it most. The vulnerability of constitutional law is an enduring reminder from legal history we forget at our peril.”