While a federal judge he made national news for his decision during World War II regarding the application of the exclusion orders that had forced those of Japanese heritage from the West Coast.
[1] There he graduated with an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1910[1] and was a member of the Gamma Zeta Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
[1] In 1916, he began serving as that city’s attorney, staying until 1917 when he joined the United States Army's Air Service as a lieutenant.
[1] In 1927, Fee left private practice to start a judicial career, serving as on the Oregon Circuit Court from 1927 to 1931.
[6] Some other cases included a labor dispute involving Montgomery Ward,[7] holding the Methodist Episcopal Church legally obligated to pay bondholders on defaulted bonds they issued to build a hospital,[8] and even refused to appoint a commissioner for Crater Lake National Park.
[11] Fee was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 6, 1954, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated by Judge Clifton Mathews.
[13] The curfew had been imposed by the United States Army's General John L. DeWitt under the authority of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 that began the Japanese American internment after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
[14] Yasui was an attorney who was a United States Army reservist and, until the start of the war, worked for the Japanese consulate in Chicago, Illinois.
[21] Prior to her death Frances had been an active member of the American Association of University Women, Army and Navy league, and the executive board of the Camp Fire Girls.
[21] She also took an interest in the affairs of her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, and was for a time the alumnae adviser of the University of Washington chapter.