Professor Eric Muller Honored for Work on Japanese American Incarceration

Eric Muller, the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law, was honored with the LaDonna Zall Compassionate Witness Award at the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage in Wyoming on July 27, 2024.

The award honors LaDonna Zall, who witnessed the departure of the last train carrying Japanese Americans from Heart Mountain on November 10, 1945. Zall later became the first curator of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, dedicating her life to preserving the site’s history until her passing in 2021.

Muller, an internationally recognized expert on the World War II-era imprisonment of Japanese Americans, has made significant contributions to preserving this history. He curated the permanent exhibit at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and has authored four books on the subject. His most recent work, “Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe: Complicity and Conscience in America’s World War II Concentration Camps,” was published in 2023.

Beyond his work at Carolina Law, Muller serves as a faculty member with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), a program that educates young professionals about ethical leadership by examining the actions of German professionals during the Nazi era. In 2021, Muller led a FASPE delegation to Heart Mountain.

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a Smithsonian Affiliate, maintains the site where approximately 14,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly held from 1942 to 1945. Their stories are shared at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, located between Cody and Powell, Wyoming.