Angela Oh, a Los Angeles attorney and activist for racial equality, spoke Friday about the Sept. 11 attacks and said the acts of terrorism have caused the United States to infringe upon the constitutional rights of minorities.

“When those 19 terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, it changed the dynamics of world power,” Oh said.

She said the U.S. government created fear in the American people about living in an open and diverse society.

“Nobody is studying deeply the laws that have been passed recently,” Oh said. “These wrongs are being committed in the name of national security.”

Oh said the United States is destroying the rights of many Arab-Americans and compared this with the deportment of Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II.

Oh, a Korean-American and a race-relations adviser to former President Bill Clinton, has made it her mission to ensure the rights of all individuals, and said the American people have a responsibility to do the same.

“We say that we are a multicultural society, but are we really and do we want to be,” Oh said. She said it is a shame that so few people who are eligible to vote actually take the time to do so, and democracy fails when this happens.

“We have no one to blame but ourselves,” Oh said.

Oh also spoke about the need for Asian-Americans and blacks to come together in order to fight racial discrimination. She said many black people are angry because Asian-Americans received reparations after World War II and many blacks feel they deserve compensation for years of slavery. This causes a deep division between the two races.

“Yes, we received reparations,” she said. “But that doesn’t take away the shame, humiliation and the years of life taken away from us.”

As an attorney, Oh has helped many minorities in their quest for racial equality in the eyes of the law. Oh gained national prominence after her role as a racial activist during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Since then, she has handled many cases concerning race discrimination.

Oh told of a case she is handling concerning a black man who was arrested for drunk-driving.

“The charge was for a DWI,” she said. “But I believe the real charge was DWB – driving while black.”

Oh said she has received some criticism for being so focused on protecting minority rights.

“I am called by some as radical, but anyone committed to upholding the Constitution couldn’t possibly be considered radical,” she said.

Oh said the key to correcting race relations is for people to not concentrate on past injustices but to focus on where the United States stands today.

“The past is just information,” she said.

Oh’s lecture was part of the Korean Studies Lecture Series, sponsored by many campus area groups. Some of these groups included the Korean Student Association, Moritz College of Law and the City of Columbus.

Noory Song, a junior in business and Japanese and vice-president of the KSA, said the organization was honored to welcome Oh to Columbus because of her national prominence and her important message. He said the City of Columbus wanted Oh to speak at City Hall, but the KSA decided against it.

“We wanted to do something for Ohio State and we wanted it geared more toward students,” Song said.

Matthew Kim, KSA president and a junior in political science, said he was impressed with Oh’s speech.

“The things she said were interesting, motivating and challenging,” he said. Kim hopes to follow in Oh’s footsteps, practicing law and building race relations.