title: The Last Story

text: A skill unique to Zael is Gathering: when activated, all enemies within an area will focus their attention on him, allowing other team members to act without interruption. As the game progresses, Zael can issue commands to the other team members, with the perspective switching to a top-down view for this action. In addition to standard combat, players can switch to a behind-the-shoulder perspective for manually firing Zael's crossbow, which can launch a variety of ammunition at enemies and objects. Enemies in Zael's sights will have their weaknesses and abilities revealed. In battle, destructible objects in the environment can be used by the party to defeat enemies; these objects regenerate after a time rather than remaining destroyed. Magic cast by certain characters with that ability leave the casting area temporarily imbued with a spell's elemental properties creating a magic circle. These circles can cause elemental damage or effects to enemies within the area, or they can imbue the weapons of characters who walk into the circle with said element. Eventually, Zael will learn the ability to "diffuse" magic circles which will spread the spell's effect which varies depending on the element.


title: The Last Story

text: In addition to the single-player campaign, players have access to online multiplayer through the game's main menu. The multiplayer features two modes: a competitive mode where players face each other in various stages, and a co-op mode where a team of players face bosses from the single-player campaign. For the competitive match, the player can choose from multiple allied and enemy characters, and all boons granted by equipment or experience levels are removed to level the playing field. Teams of up to six players can be formed for team matches. Players gain or lose points when they defeat or are defeated by an opponent, and defeated enemies respawn in the battlefield. When all opponents have been defeated, all players are awarded with items and equipment that can carry over into the single-player campaign: those who performed the best receive higher-quality equipment and "titles" to distinguish them from other players. The co-op battles allow players to carry over their equipment and character levels from single-player, with the available characters being restricted to Zael's mercenary group. Defeating a boss earns players items themed around it. In both modes, players communicate using a stock of scripted responses both taken from the single-player campaign and specially created for multiplayer.


title: The Last Story

text: "The Last Story" is set on Lazulis Island, a vast seaborne fortress ruled by Count Arganan and allied to an unnamed human empire in the midst of crisis as the land decays and dies. Dagran, a mercenary, travels to Lazulis in search of employment with the mercenary band he leads: Zael, Syrenne, Yurick, Lowell and Mirania. During the journey, Zael, who dreams of becoming a knight, encounters a mysterious force and is branded on the hand, granting him magical power. While on an errand in town, Zael runs into a woman named Lisa and helps her escape from city guards. Employed as guards to Count Arganan for the wedding of his niece, Lady Calista, to Lord Jirall, Zael encounters Calista and recognizes her as "Lisa". The group also meet General Asthar and his protegee Therius when Syrenne picks a fight with Therius. After Calista explains to Zael in private that hers is an arranged marriage, Lazulis is attacked by the Gurak, a race once banished from Lazulis by humans and now united under their ruler Zangurak. To avoid being killed by the ensuing cannon fire, Zael, Dagran, and Calista stow away on a Gurak ship and eventually take it over. The group are returned to Lazulis by the island's knights. On Lazulis, the mercenaries are accused of aiding the Gurak by the knight Jirall, who is trying to cover up his cowardly behavior during the attack by having anyone who witnessed it imprisoned. Dagran persuades Arganan to release them after showing him Zael's mark, which is revealed to be a mystical "Mark of the Outsider" given to one destined to save Lazulis.


title: The Last Story

text: Arganan attempts to get Zael onto his side, offering him knighthood and Calista's hand in marriage. Zael swears allegiance to Arganan, who orders Zael to direct Lazulis towards the Gurak lands. During this time, Asthar accepts Zael as a new pupil and gives him a medal following a successful sparring. Shortly after this, Gurak assassins kill Asthar, who tells Zael the medal is a key before dying. Zael is accused of Asthar's murder by Jirall and imprisoned, but Calista frees him. Dagran suggests Jirall is the real killer, and prompts Zael to search Jirall's room, where he finds the murder weapon and a letter revealing dealings with the Gurak. Jirall is imprisoned, though Dagran admits that the evidence was false despite Jirall's guilt. Lazulis arrives in Gurak lands and takes their keep with minimal resistance. Zael learns there that the Gurak are suffering the same degradation of the land as humans are, which motivated their invasion. Seeing the cruelty of Lazulis's soldiers to Gurak civilians, Zael questions his allegiance to Lazulis. While being comforted by Calista, Zael's brand reacts with Calista's blood and Asthar's medal to reveal a secret location on Lazulis. Joined by Therius, they find a Sorceress's ghost who reveals that the "Outsider" is an extraterrestrial being. At the bidding of her lover, Arganan's ancestor, she summoned the Outsider to the planet in an attempt to end conflict. After realizing that it was draining energy from the land, they split it into two halves in order to slow the land's death. If the two halves, now respectively controlled by humans and the Gurak, are reunited and released, the land's decay will halt and the war will end.


title: The Last Story

text: Realizing Arganan's complicity, Zael refuses his knighthood and sets out with Calista to destroy Lazulis' cannon, which is powered by Lazulis' half of the Outsider. When the Gurak attack Lazulis, they are forced to instead help Arganan use the cannon to drive off the attack. The cannon proves insufficient, and Arganan is killed by the Outsider's power. Zael and the mercenaries aid the people while Therius holds off the attacking Gurak. Zael then heads out with Calista and the mercenaries to retrieve Zangurak's half of the Outsider. Zael defeats Jirall, and then Zangurak; during the latter battle, Lowell suffers fatal injuries. The group then find Dagran with the Outsider, claiming he used the mercenaries in his own quest for revenge against the Lazulis knights who killed his family. After absorbing the Outsider's power, Dagran is defeated; he reconciles with the group before dying, then his spirit uses the Outsider's energy to resurrect Lowell. Zael and Calista reunite the two halves of the Outsider, which leaves the planet. Through Zael and Calista's efforts, humans and Gurak manage to begin coexisting, sharing their technology and using Lazulis as a neutral land. In the epilogue, Therius decides to train new knights in the empire while leaving Lazulis in Zael's care; Zael and Calista are married in her ancient family home; the mercenaries hold a wake for Dagran; and Zael is finally made a knight by Calista.


title: The Last Story

text: The initial concepts for "The Last Story" came to Hironobu Sakaguchi after his departure from Square (now Square Enix) in 2003. After a period working on games at his new studio Mistwalker, Sakaguchi realized that his style of game were not in tune with current gaming trends. Later, he elaborated that "The Last Story" was primarily born from reflecting on the design mistakes he made during the development of "Blue Dragon" (2006) and "Lost Odyssey" (2007): while they tried to innovate with the story, they kept the gameplay very traditional. Sakaguchi drew up a design document for the game, and around that time met up with Takuya Matsumoto, a designer from AQ Interactive who had worked with Sakaguchi on "Blue Dragon". They both realized that they held the same views on what was holding their games back in the current market, and decided to collaborate on the game with the goal of creating something new. In an interview with "IGN", Sakaguchi said that development took three years: the first year was devoted to a trial-and-error development process devoted to the battle system. A longer development time of four years was reported by Matsumoto in a different interview with "Gamasutra". According to Matsumoto, the team leads went to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) each year and were assured that their game was in-step with current gameplay trends. Production of "The Last Story" was a collaboration between Mistwalker, AQ Interactive and Nintendo, and was Sakaguchi's first work as a director since "Final Fantasy V" (1992). The game was going through its final development stages by April 2010, and according to Sakaguchi was "complete" by December that year.


title: The Last Story

text: Although Sakaguchi's previous RPGs from Mistwalker had been released for the Xbox 360, "The Last Story" was created for the Wii. According to Sakaguchi, this was because Nintendo's Shinji Hatano shared their vision of a role-playing game that did not follow genre conversions, and so Sakaguchi accepted his offer of collaboration. After being contacted regarding both "The Last Story" and fellow Wii ARPG "Xenoblade Chronicles", Hatano said that the games should be made for a wide audience and using a "romanticist approach". When explaining why "The Last Story" was exclusive to the Wii, Sakaguchi said that it was because a large proportion of the late development staff, including the testers, came from Nintendo. In a later interview, he said that working with the Wii, which did not use high-definition graphics, presented challenges as some of his ideas could not be implemented due to technical restrictions. Despite this, the team aimed to create a game that would look good when compared to games on high-definition consoles. Matsumoto stated that Nintendo had a strong influence on the game, which did not always sit well with him despite their suggestions ultimately improving the game. He also stated that Nintendo's creative and development aid in fine-tuning the game was the reason for its extended development.


title: The Last Story

text: The basic story was conceived by Sakaguchi and Matsumoto, while the script was written by Sakaguchi, Masaru Hatano and Takatoshi Aoki. The story was contributed to by multiple staff members, which sometimes annoyed Sakaguchi when they suggested something that would be out of character for one of the cast. According to Sakaguchi, the initial version featuring a science fiction storyline was "shot down" by Nintendo, forcing the team to begin all over again with a new setting and characters. Despite the story still using science fiction elements, the team worked to distance the setting from those elements by focusing on bright, natural colors for the environments. The biographies of the main cast were put together during the story's creation. Originally, according to Hatano, the game's theme was to have been the "all-important drama that takes place between a man and a woman", but as development progressed it was changed to a theme of general companionship, although the original story remained the same. Hatano suggested incorporating dialogue into the gameplay rather than restricting it to cutscenes. This approach was inspired by both "Uncharted" and television series "The West Wing". The concept was initially put forward as a joke about Zael's habit of kicking doors open, and how his companions would comment on how he always did this. After receiving positive feedback, they implemented it and kept in Zael's behavior. Sakaguchi used this in-game dialogue to help convey the characters' personalities: as part of this, adlibs from the actors were included, and continual adjustments were made to the script. The characters' artwork also prompted Sakaguchi to make changes so the characters better fitted their presentation. The game's voiced dialogue was estimated at 12,000 lines. The option for players to skip through dialogue was a feature that Sakaguchi did not like, but he knew that some players would not like necessary long cutscenes, so gave them the option of going through them while still following the story. This meant that all the cutscenes needed to be done using the in-game engine rather than pre-rendered graphics.


title: The Last Story

text: The characters were designed by Kimihiko Fujisaka. Fujisaka, who was acquainted with Sakaguchi, was brought on board the project at the beginning. At that point, only a simple plot outline had been created, and Sakaguchi showed this to Fujisaka and asked what he visualized from it. Due to this, Fujisaka had a lot of leeway in his designs. Due to Sakaguchi living in Hawaii while the game was being developed, Fujisaka was initially nervous about working with him on the project, but ultimately he found their working relationship to be a positive one. An aspect that worried Fujisaka during the early stages was the decision to have the characters able to change their clothing: their original appearances had been designed in relation to their lines, and while designing extra outfits proved difficult, he ultimately enjoyed the experience. Fujisaka also worked as a world designer, initially feeling restricted by the console's limited graphics. According to Fujisaka, the city hub began taking shape in 2009, relatively early in development. The world design he initially created was fairly bleak, but after Nintendo insisted on the scenario being changed, he redesigned it around a brighter fantasy aesthetic.


title: The Last Story

text: Developing the gameplay began at the start of development, with a test environment being built to develop and refine the basics of the battle system. Work within the test build spanned approximately one and a half years. While creating the battle system, the staff decided that the key words should be "order" and "chaos": whoever gained order on the battlefield would be the victor. One of the concepts that emerged from this was Gathering, Zael's ability to direct all enemies' attention towards him. At first, Gathering ended up generating an unwanted amount of chaos on the battlefield, and this resulted in the trial-and-error period for it running on for a long time. The biggest challenge, once the concept had been finalized, was adjusting its effectiveness on the battlefield depending on the situation and enemy types. A concept that did not make it into the final game was "Replay": after an enemy successfully cast a spell, players could rewatch the last few seconds of battle from an overhead view to see what type it was and take that into their strategy. This slowed the pace of combat down too much, so the concept was entirely removed. Hangovers of it include the ability to freeze time during certain actions, and the overhead perspective when commanding party members. The cover system was designed around the limitations of the camera control born from the Wii Remote's control scheme.


title: The Last Story

text: Matsumoto was responsible for the level design. While preparing destructible elements within the environment, the staff took care that they could be easily recognized by the player. So as to create a more direct experience than other Japanese RPGs, the camera view was deliberately restricted around Zael, so the player would be kept within his point of view. A difficult part of development was balancing story and gameplay, which sometimes caused clashes between Sakaguchi and Matsumoto, as Matsumoto would upset the balance and necessitate Sakaguchi re-balancing it. The battle system and AI was refined by what Matsumoto described as "chaotic battles royal between over 20 people wielding swords, magic and guns or ally command systems". The ability to fire projectiles had a big impact on the battle system's design. This concept was a hangover from the game's origins as a science fiction story. For the multiplayer, Sakaguchi avoided the potential for players to be rude to one-another by restricting their dialogue to segments from the single-player campaign. This was possible given the large amount of ambient dialogue in the game.


title: The Last Story

text: The game's music was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, a long-time collaborator with Sakaguchi who had worked on the "Final Fantasy" series, "Blue Dragon" and "Lost Odyssey". Uematsu initially had a rough time: the first three pieces of music he sent were rejected, and then Uematsu did not respond for some time. Sakaguchi worried that Uematsu might quit the project altogether. In fact, Uematsu realized Sakaguchi's wishes for the title and had to rethink his approach entirely. With the second submission, Uematsu stated that he might leave if his music still did not fit, but it did and he remained as composer. In contrast to the majority of his earlier works, which made heavy use of purely melodic pieces and "jogging music", Uematsu concentrated on a mixture between video game and film music to emphasize emotion and ambient sounds. He also worked to avoid creating signature jingles and fanfares. The most difficult pieces for him were battle tracks: the main battle theme was seven minutes long, but broken into small pieces that varied depending on situations and could be cued in depending on what was happening on the battlefield. The game's theme song, , was composed by Uematsu with lyrics by Sakaguchi. Its lyrics are about the world someone is in not being where they are meant to be, with the phrase "going home" being used progressively through the song. According to Sakaguchi, the theme was quite personal for him, and also displays the "foreignness" of the game.


title: The Last Story

text: Sakaguchi revealed that he was working on a new game in July 2009. Initially targeted for a revealing that year, this was delayed for unknown reasons into 2010. The game was announced by Nintendo in January 2010, alongside its platform and logo. It was released on January 27, 2011. Despite prompting interest from genre fans in the west since its official announcement, shortly before its Japanese release, Nintendo announced that "The Last Story" would remain exclusive to Japan. Nintendo explained that the effort involved in bringing "The Last Story" overseas would be too much work on top of other important releases such as "Kirby's Epic Yarn" and titles for the Nintendo 3DS. Despite this, Nintendo stated that there was a strong possibility of it releasing in the United Kingdom due to its growing RPG market. It was officially announced for Europe in June 2011. The European localization was handled by Nintendo of Europe, using the same team that had done "Xenoblade Chronicles". British voice actors were used for the dubbing, making use of various accents for the different characters. Some of the original programmers helped with the implementation of the localization, and it underwent unspecified adjustments. The game released in Europe on February 24, 2012. It received a limited edition, featuring a CD with seven music tracks and an artbook. It was also released in Australia on February 23.


title: The Last Story

text: After a continued lack of confirmation of a North American release, including it not being included in Nintendo's 2011 release schedule, a fan-based movement called Operation Rainfall started a campaign to raise awareness for "The Last Story", "Xenoblade Chronicles", and another Wii RPG titled "Pandora's Tower". This campaign included letter writing to Nintendo and petitions for its overseas release. Despite acknowledging the effort, Nintendo stated that there were no plans for a North American release. Matsumoto was severely disappointed by this decision and thought "The Last Story" would never make it to North America. At this point, Xseed Games, who had developed a reputation for publishing niche Japanese games, took an interest in publishing the title. Initially approaching Nintendo in 2011, Nintendo confirmed that they had no plans to publish the title themselves. After playing through a Japanese copy of the game, and the staff were favorably impressed and decided to pitch to Nintendo for the game's North American publishing rights. They were helped by the connections between parent company AQ Interactive and Mistwalker. Xseed Games was the first publisher to ask Nintendo about "The Last Story", and after being favorably impressed by their proposal, Nintendo granted Xseed Games publishing rights. While a new localization for North America was considered, it was decided to use Nintendo of Europe's localization as it better fitted the game's atmosphere and aesthetic. It officially released in North America on August 14, but problems with stock caused Amazon and GameStop to put orders on hold and push their release dates forward.


title: The Last Story

text: The game's story received generally positive reactions from critics, although some criticized it for a lack of originality in the RPG genre. While they did not comment much on the story, "Famitsu" called "The Last Story" "very classical RPG". "Eurogamer's" Martin Robinson found the characters the most appealing part of the game, an opinion shared by Francesco Dagostino of "1UP.com", who particularly cited Syrenne's portrayal. "GameSpot"s Mark Walton shared this opinion while also praising the story's epic scale. "IGN"s Keza MacDonald said that it presented a good story and characters within familiar themes and settings. "Edge Magazine" found the story fairly traditional despite a strong cast and emotional power, while Matthew Castle of "Computer and Video Games" praised the effort made to flesh out the party members in side-missions despite referring to the main narrative as "tedious". "GameTrailers", while noting the familiar plotlines the game explored, said that "The Last Story" handled its plot better than others of its kind, praising its character development. "Game Informer"s Joe Juba was fairly critical, finding the story overly predictable and the characters shallow. Jason Wishnov of G4 was also critical of the characters and plot, calling the former "one-note" despite convincing camaraderie and well-written in-game dialogue, and the latter impeded by problems with formulaic writing despite some late-game twists. Simon Parkin, writing for "Official Nintendo Magazine", found the characters likable despite a predictable story; "Nintendo Power" shared points of praise with other reviewers, in addition to praising Zael and Calista's romance, saying that it held the game together during some mid-game stumbles. RPGamer's Alex Fuller said that the story was great despite it using well-worn cliches. Multiple critics gave high praise to the British-voiced localization.


title: The Last Story

text: The gameplay was generally well received. "Famitsu" praised the battle system, saying that it was friendly towards casual gamers. MacDonald likewise praised the battle system as "one of the best combat systems I've played with in any RPG, Japanese or otherwise". Walton found the battle system fun and enjoyed the amount of side quests, while Dagostino was highly positive about the game's successful efforts in moving away from genre tradition. Juba enjoyed the multiplayer and praised the game for moving away from the genre's traditional battle systems despite faults with their overall implementation, while Robinson found the gameplay suffered from the design goals that had fueled its creation. Castle was positive about the variety of gameplay and tactical elements despite some stiff combat mechanics, but noted the inability to alter difficulty being a point against the game. Wishnov praised the fast pace and variety of the combat, but found that more cumbersome RPG elements and a lack of overall control negatively impacted the experience. "GameTrailers" generally praised about the way gameplay and combat was handled despite some "clunky" moments, but was less positive the multiplayer option's balance and variety. "Edge", while noting multiple core similarities with other games within the genre, found that other elements came together to make it a more fast-paced cinematic experience than other traditional RPGs; Fuller enjoyed the battle system, but thought that it lacked challenge and had difficulties with the camera. Parkin was generally positive about combat, particularly about the blending and gradual growth of character abilities, while "Nintendo Power" called the battle system "satisfying" and the multiplayer "surprisingly worthwhile". Multiple reviewers commented on the game's linear structure, with opinions ranging from indifferent to negative.


title: The Last Story

text: Opinions on the game's visual style varied. Walton called the game's visuals "some of the best ever seen on the Wii", which was echoed to a degree by MacDonald. Castle was generally positive about the game's aesthetics, citing the water effects as particularly good. "Edge" was fairly mixed, saying that well-done environmental effects or the world-building through character banter were spoiled by low-quality textures and stilted character animations. Juba praised the character models, but found environments to be "ugly and muddy in comparison"; Fuller, while not actively criticizing them, said that players used to high-definition consoles would be disappointed. "GameTrailers" found the amount of detail put into environments "remarkable" for the Wii hardware despite a lack of scale, while Parkin found the visuals generally unimpressive despite a few stand-out moments. "Nintendo Power" said that the graphics gave the game's setting an "authentic" appearance despite some low-resolution textures, while "Eurogamer" praised them for their "sepia tone". Frame rate drops during moments of high activity were generally noted by reviewers. Uematsu's incidental scoring also received praise from multiple critics.


title: The Last Story

text: Upon release, "The Last Story" topped Japanese gaming charts, selling 114,722 units. Assessments by Media Create stated that while the game had achieved higher sales than "Xenoblade Chronicles" due to higher interest in the title, Wii hardware sales remained low, indicating that the title was mostly bought by gamers who already owned a Wii console. By the end of 2011, the game sold just over 157,000 units. Upon its release in the UK, it debuted at #15. After the release of "The Last Story" in North America, Xseed Games released a statement saying that "The Last Story" was their most successful title to date, with its Premium Edition selling out quickly and needing to be replaced with a different special edition.


title: The Last Story

text: Upon its release, the game received critical acclaim, earning an aggregate score of 80/100 on Metacritic based on 61 critic reviews. It was cited by "GamesRadar" and "Forbes" as one of the best games of the year. Similarly, "1UP.com" named it as one of the top ten best RPGs on the Wii. In addition it was nominated for "Best Wii/Wii U Game" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, and "RPG of the Year" in "GameSpot"'s RPG of the Year award category. In "IGN"s "Best of 2012" awards, it was awarded as "Best Wii U/Wii Sound".


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football games scheduled to complete the 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The main games concluded with the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship played on January 10, 2022, while the all-star portion of the schedule concluded February 19, 2022.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The schedule for the 2021–22 bowl games is below. All times are EST (UTC−5). Note that Division II bowls and Division III bowls are not included here. The bowl schedule was released on May 27, 2021.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The College Football Playoff system is used to determine a national championship of Division I FBS college football. A 13-member committee of experts ranked the top 25 teams in the nation after each of the last seven weeks of the regular season. The top four teams in the final ranking were then seeded in a single-elimination semifinal round, with the winners advancing to the National Championship game.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The semifinal games for the 2021 season were the Cotton Bowl Classic and the Orange Bowl. Both were played December 31, 2021, as part of a yearly rotation of three pairs of two bowls, commonly referred to as the New Year's Six bowl games. The winners advanced to the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship on January 10, 2022.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: Two bowls, which had originally planned to debut during the 2020–21 bowl season but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, planned to make their debuts during the 2021–22 bowl season; the Fenway Bowl (Boston, Massachusetts) and the LA Bowl (Inglewood, California). The LA Bowl made its debut, while the Fenway Bowl was again canceled due to COVID-19 issues.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The Montgomery Bowl, played in December 2020 as a one-off substitute for the Fenway Bowl, did not return. The San Francisco Bowl (formerly the Redbox Bowl) was canceled for a second straight season when organizers could not come to terms with all parties involved with the game.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 2, 2021, the NCAA approved a 42nd bowl game, later named the Frisco Football Classic, in order to accommodate all 84 bowl-eligible teams.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 22, Texas A&M withdrew from the Gator Bowl, citing a breakout of positive COVID-19 cases and season-ending injuries limiting them to too few players. Rutgers was subsequently announced as a replacement team.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 23, Hawaii withdrew from the Hawaii Bowl, similarly citing season-ending injuries, transfers, and COVID-19 cases within the program, and the game was ultimately cancelled.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 26, Boston College withdrew from the Military Bowl and Virginia withdrew from the Fenway Bowl due to COVID-19 cases; both games were canceled.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 26, the Miami (FL) Hurricanes announced that they would not be able to play in the Sun Bowl due to COVID-19 issues; organizers stated that they would try to secure a replacement team to face the Washington State Cougars.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 27, the Boise State Broncos withdrew from the Arizona Bowl due to COVID-19 issues; organizers stated that they would attempt to secure a replacement team. Later in the day, the Arizona Bowl was canceled, and the bowl's remaining team, the Central Michigan Chippewas, was named as the replacement team for the Sun Bowl.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 28, the Holiday Bowl was called off hours before game time, due to COVID-19 issues within the UCLA Bruins program, and officially canceled the next morning, after organizers could not secure a replacement team to face the NC State Wolfpack.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: In the below table, affiliations for confirmed teams reflect their actual conferences, and rankings are per the final CFP rankings that were released on December 5.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) has one bowl game. The FCS also has a postseason bracket tournament that culminates in the 2022 NCAA Division I Football Championship Game.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: Each of these games features college seniors, or players whose college football eligibility is ending, who are individually invited by game organizers. These games are scheduled to follow the team-competitive bowls, to allow players selected from bowl teams to participate. The all-star games may include some players from non-FBS programs.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: A new all-star game, the HBCU Legacy Bowl, was announced in March 2021, and concluded the overall college football post-season on February 19, 2022. All times are EST.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: On December 5, 2021, the College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee announced its final team rankings for the year. This was the eighth year of the CFP era. Cincinnati became the first team from the Group of Five conferences to reach the playoffs. Michigan became the first team to make the playoffs after starting the season unranked in the AP Poll.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: Ranks are per the final CFP rankings, released on December 5, with win–loss records at that time. One bowl will feature a matchup of conference champions – the Cotton Bowl. Champions of the Power Five conferences were assured of a spot in a New Year's Six bowl game.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: Generally, a team must have at least six wins to be considered bowl eligible, with at least five of those wins being against FBS opponents. The College Football Playoff semi-final games are determined based on the top four seeds in the playoff committee's final rankings. The remainder of the bowl eligible teams are selected by each respective bowl based on conference tie-ins, order of selection, match-up considerations, and other factors.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: A total of thirty-seven venues were utilized, with seven of them in particular for the CFP National Championship and New Year's Six (NY6). The number of venues increased from twenty, primarily due to the relaxation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of venues for bowl games typically was around forty. Prestige and capacity of venues usually increases as the schedule progresses towards to NY6 bowls and the national championship, in large part due to scheduling Top 25 teams late into the bowl games' time frame, while bowl games before Christmas Day typically involve schools in Group of Five conferences. Televising at the venues of bowl games is largely run by ESPN and joint networks (ABC & ESPN2), with only three bowl games run by a non-affiliated network (Holiday Bowl on Fox, Sun Bowl on CBS and Arizona Bowl on Barstool Sports). With the exception of the Bahamas Bowl in The Bahamas, all bowls were played within the United States.


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The College Football Playoff committee elected to continue with the six venues for this postseason—including two as the semifinals for the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship―as outlined below:


title: 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games

text: The National Championship was played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, marking the first time that a state in the U.S. midwest hosted the national championship game in the CFP era.


title: Cyndi Lauper discography

text: American singer Cyndi Lauper has released eleven studio albums, six compilation albums, five video albums and fifty-one singles. Worldwide, Lauper has sold approximately 50 million albums, singles and DVDs. According to RIAA, She has sold 8.5 million certified albums in the United States with "She's so Unusual" being her biggest seller (6× Platinum as of 1997).


title: Cyndi Lauper discography

text: Lauper was a founding member of Blue Angel, who released their debut album in 1980 on Polydor Records. The album was unsuccessful, causing the band to break up and Lauper to file for bankruptcy. In 1983, Lauper obtained a contract with Portrait Records, and her debut solo album, "She's So Unusual", was released. The album was a major success, achieving platinum and gold certification around the world and spawning the hits "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Time After Time", "All Through the Night (Jules Shear song)" and "She Bop". In 1985, Lauper released "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough", a single from the soundtrack to "The Goonies", and her second album, "True Colors", was released in 1986. "True Colors" was another successful album, along with the single of the same name and "Change of Heart". A starring role in the film "Vibes" in 1988 led to the release of "Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)", which was a hit in Australia and New Zealand. Lauper's third album, "A Night to Remember", was released in 1989. This album was less successful, despite the popularity of the first single, "I Drove All Night". The following single, "My First Night Without You" managed to chart in the top 60 in the United States.


title: Cyndi Lauper discography

text: In 1992, Lauper appeared in the English version of "Starmania", a French rock opera. She released a single from the musical, "The World Is Stone", which was a major hit in several countries, particularly France. Her album "Hat Full of Stars" was released in 1993 on Epic Records, attaining gold certification in France and Japan. Lauper's greatest hits compilation, "Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some", was released in 1994, with the re-recorded version of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" reaching number four in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. A compilation of Lauper's music videos and an interview was released at the same time on VHS. In 1996, she released "Sisters of Avalon", and an original album of Christmas songs, "Merry Christmas...Have a Nice Life" in 1998. These two albums were much less successful internationally than her previous releases, but both charted in Japan. "Sisters of Avalon" was also certified platinum in Japan.


title: Cyndi Lauper discography

text: In 2001, Lauper planned to release another album, "Shine", but the record company folded. An extended play version of the album was released to counter Internet piracy, and the full album was released exclusively in Japan in 2004. In 2003, Lauper released her seventh studio album, "At Last", and a live version in 2004 on DVD, "Live... At Last". "At Last" is a set of covers that reinvent classic songs, such as the title track "At Last", "Walk On By" and "Stay". The live DVD achieved gold certification in the United States. In 2005, Lauper released "The Body Acoustic", featuring new acoustic versions of her hits, such as a duet of "Time After Time" with Sarah McLachlan. Lauper's 2008 album, "Bring Ya to the Brink", was her first release in seven years containing original material, and met with considerable success. In December 2008 she recorded the duet "A Christmas Duel" with Swedish pop band The Hives, released in Sweden only, where it reached number 4. "Memphis Blues", was released in 2010. It managed to be her highest-charting album on the "Billboard" 200 since "True Colors" in 1986, spending 13 consecutive weeks at number-one on the "Billboard" Blues chart, becoming the highest selling blues album of the year. So far, it has sold 600,000 copies worldwide. Her most recent album is "Detour", released in 2016. It is a country and western album inspired by some of her favourite artists growing up including Patsy Cline. The album peaked at number 29 on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Return to Zion

text: The return to Zion (, , ) is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible, in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah—subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire—were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon. After their release, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus that enabled the freed Jewish populace, exiled from Judah, to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah, which had begun to function as a self-governing Jewish province under the Achaemenid Persian Empire.


title: Return to Zion

text: The Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II occupied the Kingdom of Judah between 597–586 BCE. The Babylonian army had destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Hebrew Bible, the king of Judah, Zedekiah, was forced to watch his own two sons being slaughtered, and thereafter, his own eyes were put out and he was exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 25).


title: Return to Zion

text: According to the books of Ezra–Nehemiah, a number of decades later in 538 BCE, the Jews in Babylon were allowed to return to the Land of Judah, due to Cyrus's decree. Initially, around 50,000 Jews returned to the Land of Judah following the decree of Cyrus as described in Ezra, whereas most remained in Babylon. Later, an unknown number of exiles returned from Babylon with Ezra himself. The return of the deportees to Judah during the next 110 years is known as the return to Zion, an event by which Jews ever since have been inspired.


title: Return to Zion

text: The returnees settled in what became known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud. Yehud Medinata was a self-governing Jewish province under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire which even issued their own Yehud coinage inscribed with the three letters Y-H-D.


title: Return to Zion

text: According to the books of Ezra–Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, the return to Zion occurred in several waves: those of Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah.


title: Return to Zion

text: The Book of Ezra first depicts the return of Sheshbazzar at the consent and encouragement of the Persian King Cyrus:


title: Return to Zion

text: The second migration recounted in the Book of Ezra is that of Zerubbabel and included 42,360 people, not including servants or handmaids. Among them, there were 24,144 ordinary men (57.12%) and 12,452 women and children (29.46%). There were also 4,289 priests (10.15%), 74 generic Levites (0.18%), 128 Singers (0.3%), 139 Gatekeepers (0.33%) (Singers and gatekeepers were specific roles of Levites in the holy temple in Jerusalem that had been passed from one generation to another), 392 Nethinim (0.93%), and 652 people who could not tell their fathers' houses and their ancestry (1.54%). 90 other people (0.21%) appear to have joined in, to complete that count of 42,360. In addition 7,337 servants and handmaids joined in, boosting the population to 49,697. They also brought up their working animals: 736 horses (one for about every 68 people), 246 mules (one for every 202 people), 435 camels (one per 114 people), and 6,720 donkeys (one for every 7 people).


title: Return to Zion

text: The third migration was led by "Ezra the scribe", with the Talmud mentioning that Ezra was delayed in returning to the Land of Judah because he had to stay alongside his Rabbi, Baruch ben Neriah, a disciple of Jeremiah and one of the leading figures among Jews, but too old and weak to travel to the Land of Judah.


title: Return to Zion

text: Ezra returned with the official approval of the Persian government and license to take out all donated money from exiled Jews and government officials to the holy temple and Jews living in Judea. He was also permitted to transfer holy vessels to the Temple in Jerusalem, and a decree was given to the government treasurers to allocate them with money, wheat, wine and oil. In addition, all which served in the holy temple, the priests, Levites and Nethinims were given tax exemption, and Ezra was authorized to appoint magistrates and judges and to teach the law of God to the people of Judah, as well as the authority to impose penalties of confiscation, banishment or execution, if needed.


title: Return to Zion

text: The fourth migration was led by Nehemiah, who requested a temporary leave of absence to go to Judah in order to rebuild Jerusalem and repair its city walls and his request was approved by the king. For this purpose, he was given permission to cut down woods and was escorted by the army.


title: Return to Zion

text: Due to the economic distress that the people of Judea were under, Nehemiah faced a public crisis during the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah heard the Jewish people's complaints and got angry at the Jewish nobles and officials for taking advantage of the crisis to make money off the poor Jews, especially those serving in the holy temple that were tax exempt, whereas the rest of the people of Judea were feeling the economic burden of heavy taxes by the Persian government. Nehemiah assembled a public hearing and contended with the nobles of Judah. He urged them to restore to the poor their fields and houses and relinquish their loans, and in order to set a personal example, he was the first to follow his own steps, proclaiming that he and his close associates would forgo their debts. He managed to get their assurances on this matter, but did not settle with their assurances and put them under oath that they should do according to this promise. On the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul, 52 days after the work began, the whole wall was completed.


title: Return to Zion

text: The biblical Book of Ezra includes two texts said to be decrees of Cyrus the Great allowing the deported Jews to return to their homeland after decades and ordering the Temple rebuilt. The differences in content and tone of the two decrees, one in Hebrew and one in Aramaic, have caused some scholars to question their authenticity. The Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient tablet on which is written a declaration in the name of Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of the authenticity of the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus, but other scholars point out that the cylinder's text is specific to Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Professor Lester L Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus" regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there was a "general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than a single event.


title: Return to Zion

text: In the middle of the 5th century BCE, the exiled Judean communities experienced a significant national awakening. It has been demonstrated that the Judean residents of Nippur, the majority of whom had names of Babylonian origin, suddenly began giving their children Judean theophoric names.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo Byung-eun () was a South Korean businessman and inventor, who as a photographer was known under the art name Ahae. He was known as "the millionaire with no face" due to his reclusiveness.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo was chairman of Chonghaejin Marine, which operated the MV "Sewol" ferry between Incheon and Jeju when it sank. The sinking became known as the Sewol ferry disaster. When the Incheon District Court issued a warrant on 22 May 2014 for his arrest, Yoo went into hiding and was South Korea's most-wanted fugitive. In June 2014, police discovered a body that was confirmed to be Yoo's in July 2014. An investigation into the cause of death was inconclusive because the body was too decomposed.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo was born in Kyoto, Japan to Korean parents on 11 February 1941. Yoo's family returned to Korea following the liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and settled in Daegu, where Yoo graduated from Seonggwang High School.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: According to the U.S.-based non-profit organization Evangelical Media Group created by Yoo in 2001, "he first began to live for the sake of the gospel in 1961," and that he "worked as an inventor and businessman to support the spreading of the gospel all over the world". Yoo was one of 11 students admitted to the Good News Mission Bible school established in Korea by American and English missionaries, but he was expelled. He founded what later became the Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea, also known as the Salvation Sect, in 1962 with his father-in-law, Pastor Kwon Shin-chan (; 192396). The church was held to be a cult by a conservative Christian denomination, the General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches, in 1992.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo, while still serving as a pastor, got his start in business when acquiring the bankrupt textile company Samwoo Trading Co. () in 1976. He took over as CEO in 1978, and turned it into a toy manufacturing and export company. Yoo went into shipping when he founded Semo Corp. () in 1979, a holding company that came to span shipping, shipbuilding, domestic ferry businesses, electronics, real estate, cosmetics, paint, stuffed toys, pewter, and various other ventures. Semo started operating ferries on Seoul's Han River in 1986, two years before the city held the Summer Olympics.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo came to public attention in connection with the Odaeyang mass suicide in 1987. Police were investigating accusations against a 48-year-old woman, Park Soon-ja, saying that she had swindled billion (~ million) from about 220 people. Odeyang Trading Co. was a firm that established by Park who used to attend Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea and Jehovah's Witnesses in the past. Yoo has denied any link to the group. On 29 August 1987 thirty-two members of the sect who believed in doomsday, including Park Soon-ja and her three children, were found dead, bound and gagged. Police assumed the event was a murder–suicide pact, and the prosecution initially suspected that Yoo was linked to the case; but he was never charged, and the police closed the case as a mass suicide. After six people, including a former follower of Park named Kim Do-hyun, surrendered to authorities on 10 July 1991, the case was reopened and found money transactions between Odaeyang Trading Co. and a member of Evangelical Baptist Church. However, the money transactions revealed that they had nothing to do with Odaeyang Trading Co. case, and private loan of Odaeyang Trading Co. Those were normal payment remittances of goods between Park and the member of Evangelical Baptist Church before establishment of Odaeyang Trading Co. Yoo was arrested and, in 1992, convicted of "habitual fraud under the mask of religion" for his role in colluding with one of his employees to collect donations from church members in the amount of billion (~ million) and invest them in his businesses. He served a 4-year prison term.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: In November 2014, report says Incheon District Prosecutor's Office confirm in May there was no connection between Yoo and Odaeyang incident.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: By 1990, Semo Corp. had 1,800 employees, but the ferry businesses suffered maritime accidents. In 1990, 14 Semo workers were killed when their cruise ship on the Han River was hit by another ship. The company was cleared of any liability for the incident. Semo grew into the biggest ferry operator by 1994, operating 30 ships, and once had nearly 3,000 employees.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Semo Group filed for bankruptcy with more than billion (~ million) in debts amidst the 1997 Asian financial crisis, in the wake of a series of highly publicized scandals, citing business diversification as the cause of a cash shortage that had fuelled a rise in debts in its bankruptcy protection petition, and was liquidated.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: After Semo's bankruptcy, Yoo's family continued to operate ferry businesses under the names of other companies, including one that eventually became Chonghaejin Marine, and grew to become the monopolistic operator of ferries linking Incheon and Jeju.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Chonghaejin Marine Company Ltd. was set up two years later on 24 February 1999, a day before a court approved the restructuring of the bankrupt Semo, and became a key entity to consolidate Semo's shipping business, taking over ships and assets held by Semo Marine, and had its debts written off.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: According to Chaebul.com, an online information provider on large businesses, Yoo and his family own 30 business operators, with 13 doing business abroad such as in the U.S., Hong Kong and France. Their combined assets amount to some billion (~ million). The collective assets of the 13 overseas operations surged to billion (~ million) at the end of 2013. In France in 2012, Yoo made headlines prior to his photo exhibition in the Tuileries Garden at The Louvre when he through his public relations company, Ahae Press, bought the abandoned village of Courbefy for (, million). Yoo had seen it on CNN, and wanted to set up an "environmental, artistic and cultural" project in the village. Yoo has a wide range of other business interests according to official documents and information on company websites. He owns a plantation in the United States called 123Farm, one of the largest organic lavender farms in California started in 2001 at the site of the Highland Springs Resort, a property consisting of a 56-room hotel, conference center, and restaurants. Yoo was chairman of the board of the company that bought the resort in May 1990 for million. I-One-I Holdings subsidiary Dapanda owns 9.9percent of the Highland Springs Conference and Training Centre at the resort, according to regulatory filings.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: As an inventor, Yoo holds multiple patents, one being for a colonic irrigation system, for which he received an International Federation of Inventors' Associations' prize at the 2006 Seoul International Invention Fair. The invention is marketed in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, South Korea, Philippines, and Malaysia by NaeClear, and is sold in South Korea by the company Dapanda. It "arose from the concept of Hemato-Centric Health, which revolves around the blood as being the center of life." supposedly a concept created by Yoo and his non-profit research organization Hemato-Centric Life Institute (New York) chaired by his younger son Keith H. Yoo (Yoo Hyuk-kee, ; born 1972); sponsored by NaeClear Co., Ltd. and daughter Yoo Som-na's company Moreal Design Inc., Yoo delivered keynote speeches at the 2010–13Hemato-Centric Life Forum meetings in Seoul organized by Hemato-Centric Life Foundation.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Ahae (), which means "child" in old Korean language, was a nickname used in reference to Yoo in correspondence on an Evangelical Baptist Church website EBC World. Through his PR companies Ahae Press, Inc. in New York, Ahae Press France in Paris, and Ahae Press Ltd. UK in London, Yoo has exhibited and marketed himself as the photographer who goes by the name Ahae. Yoo was unknown as a photographer before 2011.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: The project titled "Through My Window" began in early spring 2009 and continued for 4 years, during which time Yoo allegedly took about 2.7 million photographs, all through one window, which equates to a rate of roughly one photo every 60 seconds. The collection mainly consists of natural scenes shot through the window of Yoo's own studio. The location is the rural commune belonging to the Evangelical Baptist Church called "Geumsuwon" () east of Anseong south of Seoul, where Yoo lived.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo first exhibited "Through My Window" in the Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Terminal, New York City, in April 2011; co-produced by daughter Yoo Som-na's company Moreal Design, it was organized by Hemato-Centric Life Institute, and sponsored by Highland Springs Resort and Bear Family Green Club. His exhibition "Through My Window: Vibrancy and Serenity" was on display on the same location in October 2011. Yoo did not attend the exhibition that was unveiled by his second son, Yoo Hyuk-kee, known outside South Korea as Keith H. Yoo. Keith, as CEO of Ahae Press, curated his father's exhibitions.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: As a travelling exhibition, "Through My Window" was then on display in Europe at the National Gallery in Prague, Clarence House Gardens, Lancaster House, and Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, Vremena Goda Galleries in Moscow, Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia in Florence, and in Magazzini del Sale, Venice.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: From June to August 2012, "Through My Window" ("De ma fenêtre") was displayed in a , four-story bespoke exhibition pavilion erected in the Tuileries Garden, that is administratively attached to The Louvre, in Paris. English film composer Ilan Eshkeri was commissioned to write a twelve-part tone poem. Pre-recorded in Abbey Road Studios by the London Metropolitan Orchestra the 46 minutes composition played alongside the exhibition, and was later released on Blu-ray Disc. For the gala dinner in the exhibition pavilion on 25 June 2012 Keith H. Yoo had commissioned British composer Michael Nyman to write a 26 minutes long piano quintet in four movements titled "Through the Only Window". The work was subsequently recorded by Nyman Quintet in the Abbey Road Studios, and released on Nyman's record label. Hervé Barbaret, deputy to former director of The Louvre Henri Loyrette, disclosed to "L'Express" in 2014 that "The Louvre did not pay a penny to organize this event. The artist paid the production entirely and paid a little more than (~, ~ million) to exhibit himself in the Tuileries". Ahae further donated million (~ million, ~ billion) to the Louvre.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: French magazine "A nous Paris" in its 25 June 2012 edition asked Keith H. Yoo the question: "The exhibition is a significant cost. Do you have any sponsors?" To which Keith answered: "No. We are funding everything with the money from our different companies. We are not interested in outside pressure and want to enjoy total freedom."


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: For his second solo exhibition in France, "Fenêtre sur l'extraordinaire" ("Window on the Extraordinary"), Ahae rented the Orangerie Hall of the Palace of Versailles from 25 June to 9 September 2013. To mark the end of the exhibition, Michael Nyman was again commissioned, and wrote a 32-minute symphony in four movements for the occasion, Symphony No. 6"AHAE", representing the four seasons in nature as depicted by Ahae. French composer Nicolas Bacri was commissioned to write a 29-minute symphonic piece, his opus 130, titled "Ahae's Day (Four Images for Orchestra)". The London Symphony Orchestra was hired to premiere both pieces at L'Opéra of the Palace of Versailles in Paris on 8 September 2013. Both pieces were recorded for a planned future release. Ahae was the sole patron of the Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau (Water Theatre Grove) () currently being recreated with sculptures by Jean-Michel Othoniel in the area of the Gardens of Versailles, donating million (~ million, ~ billion). Catherine Pégard, head of the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles who administer the Palace of Versailles, disclosed that the exhibition was on a sponsorship basis, saying "The artist himself wanted to rent the Orangerie. But we never communicate the numbers." Spurred by investigative reporting initially published by Bernard Hasquenoph, French "Le Monde" and British "The Times" wrote that Ahae gave million (~ million, ~ billion) to Versailles.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Parisian newspapers "Le Monde" and "Libération", several French art magazines, as well as Korean expatriates in France in an open letter on 12 June to French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti, Catherine Pégard, president of the Château de Versailles, Henri Loyrette, ex-president of the Louvre and co-president of the French-Korean Year, and Bruno Ory-Lavollé, director of the Forest Festival in Compiègne, have raised their concerns over French cultural institutions accepting self-financed exhibitions in return for donations. "La Croix" on 3 July wrote that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius would write to Versailles to demand the termination of the Ahae sponsorship there.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Ahae, through his company Ahae Press, was a patron of the Forest Festival, a classical music festival in the forests of Compiègne, northern France. His photographs were to be projected during a gala concert at Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne on 4 July 2014. The sponsorship commitment was (~, ~ million). Following the open letter on 12 June from Korean expatriates in France to, among others, Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti and the director of the Forest Festival, and subsequent talks between the festival and the Ministry of Culture, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on 30 June gave written notice to the festival suggesting the projection should be renounced "out of sensitivity and respect for the Korean people mourning [following the sinking of "Sewol"], in particular the families of the young victims, and in the interest of the Festival and of France"; the projection and the sponsorship was cancelled on 2 July.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: An Ahae exhibition produced by Ahae Press titled "Les échos du temps de près et de loin" ("Echos of Time: Far and Near") for the opening season of the new Philharmonie de Paris was scheduled for 5 May to 28 September 2015, and a concert sponsored by Ahae Press on 15 June 2015 in Philharmonie de Paris featuring Nyman's Symphony No. 6 "Ahae" and Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" was announced; both have been cancelled.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: The ferry "Sewol" capsized and sank on 16 April 2014. It was carrying 476 people, mostly secondary school students from Danwon High School who were travelling from Incheon towards Jeju. The sinking resulted in 304 deaths, and is the worst ferry disaster in South Korea since 14 December 1970, when the sinking of the ferry "Namyoung" cost 326 people out of 338 their lives. "Sewol" was operated by the company Chonghaejin Marine.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Before his death, Yoo had widely been described as "the owner of" or "the "de facto" owner of" the sunken ferry "Sewol", and was former chairman of Chonghaejin Marine. Son Byong-ki, Yoo's lawyer, stated on 25 April that Yoo "has no financial ties to Chonghaejin or its subsidiaries." A press release from Yoo's U.S. publicist, Ahae Press Inc., stated that "[Mr. Yoo] does not own any shares, direct or indirect, of Chonghaejin." Financial filings confirmed that Yoo had no stake in the shipping company.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo was the head of the family who partially own Chonghaejin Marine, and is believed to have exercised influence through a web of company cross-shareholdings. His two sons, Yoo Dae-kyun (; born ), and second son Yoo Hyuk-kee, are controlling the shipping firm through a majority stake in the investment vehicle I-One-I Holdings as well as 13 unlisted affiliates which through a tangled web of ownership structure own each other, a structure prosecutors describe as pyramid-like, and ultimately is controlled by individuals― Yoo's two sons and seven of his friends. Chung Sun-seop, editor of Chaebul.com, a website that analyses South Korea's chaebol business groups, said that "This kind of shadow management through his children or close aides is not uncommon among chaebol companies."


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 23 April investigators of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office raided the head office of Chonghaejin Marine, and some 20 offices of its affiliates, as well as the office of the Evangelical Baptist Church in Yongsan, central Seoul. Prosecutors suspected that funds from members of the religious group had been used in business operations of Chonghaejin Marine and Yoo Byung-eun. The prosecution found more than 100 bogus companies, many of them set up and operated by followers of a Yoo's religious group, had paid Yoo and his two sons at least billion (~ million) for their "consulting services," and had purchased photos taken by Yoo. Yoo's religious group denied cross-border transactions with affiliates of the ferry operator. The Prosecution secured video footage of a lecture Yoo delivered to the sect's believers in April 2010, in which Yoo admitted to have registered properties under the names of other persons.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: A lawyer representing Yoo Dae-kyun and Yoo Hyuk-kee said on 22 April that "If there is any legal responsibility, the owners are willing to offer their wealth and assets to help compensate the victims."


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Michael Ham, managing director of Ahae Press and co-director of Evangelical Media Group, in a press release 25 April 2014 said: "Mr. Yoo does not have any involvement in the management or day-to-day operations of Chonghaejin Marine Co. ... I know that he has been spending every single day of the past four to five years focusing on his photography work." Yoo's lawyer stated that Yoo had not been involved in corporate management since Semo went bankrupt in 1997.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Investigators obtained evidence indicating Yoo as the "de facto" leader of the company. One piece of evidence was a detailed list of all the company's staff prepared on 15 April 2014, a day before the sinking of the MV "Sewol", which named Yoo as chairman of Chonghaejin Marine with employee number A99001, or employee No. 1 at the company, which was established in 1999. They also discovered a pay stub that records a payment of million (~) monthly over more than a year. They have also obtained testimony from others that Yoo was directly involved in managing the ferry operator.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: "Sewol" was remodeled between October 2012 and February 2013 to increase the number of passenger cabins and add a fifth floor, mainly used as an exhibition hall for photographs by Yoo (Ahae). The employee of Chonghaejin who was in charge of the refitting testified that he carried out the expansion under the direction of Yoo.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Investigators found that Yoo has glossed over critical problems with the stability of the refurbished vessel. According to the prosecution, the regular captain of the "Sewol" testified that he had warned Chonghaejin Marine of serious stability problems with the vessel, and Kim Han-shik, the chief of Chonghaejin Marine notified Yoo of the risks of overloading it with freight in January 2014. Kim reportedly pointed out the ferry's weakened ability to recover left-and-right balance when tilted due to the extension in the number of cabins, and advised Yoo to sell off the ferry. Yoo allegedly told them to keep running "Sewol" as usual and put up for sale both the sister ship "Ohamana" and "Sewol" in March.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 20 May it was confirmed that the overloading and remodeling of the ship compromised its ability to maintain stability at the time of the accident.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Based on the evidence, prosecutors concluded that Yoo was the one who directed operation and execution of business, and planned to hold Yoo vicariously liable for the acts of the operator's crew members. Accordingly, the prosecution was poised to cite "negligent homicide" in its application of criminal law against Yoo.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo was charged with embezzlement, breach of trust and tax evasion. He is suspected of embezzling billion (~ million) from his companies, including billion (~ million) transferred overseas illegally, as part of a scheme to sell his nature photographs to his companies for tens of millions of won. He also owes an estimated billion (~ million) in taxes for the photos sold. Prosecutors also found evidence that Yoo's family set up several paper companies with no consultants, which then collected some billion (~ million) in consulting fees from companies related to Semo Group over the last few years. They are also looking into circumstantial evidence that Yoo's family has claimed commission fees of tens of billions of won from the related companies for the use of trademark rights for names like "Sewol."


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 30 June, the prosecution announced its intention to indict Yoo, irrespective of whether or not he was apprehended, citing "homicide by negligence" in the charges.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo made no known public appearances since the "Sewol" sank. Within the first week of investigation the Ministry of Justice banned Yoo, his eldest son Yoo Dae-kyun, and more than 60 other employees in various companies owned by Yoo or his sons from leaving South Korea.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Son Byeong-gi, a lawyer representing both Yoo, Chonghaejin Marine, and I-One-I Holdings, said on 22 April that "If there is any legal responsibility, the owners are willing to offer their wealth and assets to help compensate the victims."


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: The Park Geun-hye administration pledged to exercise the right to indemnity against Yoo and Chonghaejin Marine as soon as the state compensates victims' families. The combined damages from the sinking of the "Sewol" are estimated to reach trillion (~ billion).


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: The accumulated value of the assets owned by Yoo and his family is estimated at over billion (~ million). It includes an estimated billion (~ million) held by Yoo himself, billion (~ million) by eldest daughter Yoo Som-na, billion (~ million) by eldest son Yoo Dae-kyun, and billion (~ million) by the second son Yoo Hyuk-kee.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Son Byeong-gi representing Yoo told the "Chosun Ilbo" on 24 April that reports that Yoo's assets total billion were not true, but that Yoo had "voiced his willingness to donate his entire billion (~ million) estate due to his deep sorrow for those who lost their lives aboard the "Sewol"." A prosecution official investigating Yoo's holdings said there was a "huge gap" between what the former chairman claimed he was worth and what investigators had found out so far. Son claimed on 25 April that he had been misunderstood and by billion had meant "tens of billions" of won, and that Yoo was willing to donate his "entire" assets, whatever their size. Son later resigned as lawyer for the family on 15 May.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: A financier of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea was summoned for questioning on 24 April to trace deals between the sect and companies run by Yoo and his two sons. Transcripts of land registers showed that four days later Yoo and his family signed over some 24 properties worth around billion (~ million) to the Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea on 28 and 29 April.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 13 May, the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office summoned Yoo to appear for questioning by 16 May, but he failed to heed the call, and was presumed hiding in the church compound Geumsuwon south of Seoul. All of Yoo's children and a number of key suspects had ignored the summons. Yoo failed to appear at a court hearing on 20 May. On 22 May the Incheon District Court issued an arrest warrant and Korean authorities offered a million () reward for information leading to the arrest of Yoo. On 25 May the reward was raised tenfold to million ().


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Prosecutors warned on 24 May that anyone who helps Yoo in hiding faces up to three years in prison. Four members of Yoo's religious group were arrested 25 May for assisting Yoo to escape detection by the police. On 26 May Yoo's religious group, in an apparent move to confuse investigators, said that Yoo might have returned early in the morning to Geumsuwon, the church commune in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province. Geumsuwon is known as the main residence of Yoo. A spokesperson for the sect later announced that Yoo had not returned, further saying, "We hope Yoo doesn't get arrested. A 100,000 followers will protect Yoo. Even if the entire congregation of 100,000 believers is arrested, we won't hand him over." Lee Jae-ok, another member of Yoo's religious group, chairman of Yoo's Hemato-Centric Life Foundation, and one of Yoo's close aides, was arrested on 26 May on charges of planning Yoo's life as a fugitive and helping him evade detection for weeks.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: President Park Geun-hye during a Cabinet meeting on 27 May ordered a quick arrest of the fugitive Yoo saying he and his family "is ridiculing the law and causing indignation among the people." Beginning 27 May, police doubled the number of officers deployed for the search for Yoo from 24,000 to almost 50,000.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's eldest daughter, Yoo Som-na (; born 1966), was summoned for questioning multiple times by the prosecution, but evaded the office's investigation. She headed the interior design and consulting firm Moreal Design with offices on New York's Park Avenue and in Seoul, which has done design work for many of Semo's affiliates, Debauve & Gallais, Hemato-Centric Life Institute, and NaeClear, and has sponsored Yoo's photographic exhibitions. On 9 May 2014, police raided the firm's office in southern Seoul on suspicion it had been involved in forming the family's slush funds and managing them in overseas accounts. On 11 May, the authorities issued an arrest warrant for Som-na after she failed to appear for questioning. Som-na had been staying in France since February 2013 on a temporary residence visa. She is accused of embezzling billion ( million) from her affiliates including Dapanda since 2003, while working as the head of Moreal Design in Seoul.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 23 May an Interpol Red Notice was issued, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered Som-na to surrender her passport, while the Ministry of Justice dispatched local investigators to France to discuss potential extradition. French law enforcement authorities arrested Som-na under the international arrest warrant on 27 May in her Paris apartment, reportedly worth billion (US$2.44 million), near Champs-Élysées. The Ministry of Justice said that it would repatriate Som-na following a repatriation trial in France. She appeared before a judge on 28 May, who decided against releasing her on bail. Through her French lawyer, Patrick Maisonneuve, Som-na said she was innocent of the charges brought against her. An appeals court on 11 June rejected Som-na's request for bail, citing flight risk. A renewed request to be released pending the extradition decision 17 September was rejected by a Paris judge on 9 July. She was held at the Fresnes Prison and was projected to bring her extradition case to the French Supreme Court, or even to judicial authorities of the European Union, which could have delayed her repatriation up to one year.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 2 June 2017 the appeal on the extradition order for Yoo Som-na was rejected by the highest administrative court in France, and on 7 June 2017 she was arrested by South-Korean officials at the Charles de Gaulle airport, aboard a plane from Korean Airlines bound for Korea.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: During the month of May, numerous persons were questioned and arrested, among them eight people who held top positions at subsidiary companies in Yoo's sphere of influence.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: The criminal trial of the eight defendants started at Incheon District Court on 16 June, the eight being accused of embezzlement, breach of fiduciary duty and other instances of corruption, with prosecutors alleging that the defendants inflicted between billion (~ million) and billion (~ million) worth of losses on their firms to help Yoo's family create slush funds. Three of the defendants denied their charges, the others admitted to irregular intragroup trading, saying that they acted on the orders of Yoo's eldest son, Dae-kyun, and Yoo's close aide Kim Phil-bae, who both reportedly fled to the United States.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's brother-in-law, Kwon Oh-kyun (; born ), the younger brother to Yoo's wife, Kwon Yun-ja, was arrested at his home in southern Seoul on charges of negligence on 6 June. Kwon, a key leader of the Salvation Sect, is CEO of the construction firm Trigon Korea, a core affiliate of Chonghaejin Marine, and suspected of embezzling company funds to illicitly transfer to Yoo and Yoo's children. On 8 June, a court warrant was issued to detain Kwon, inhibiting he fled the country or destroyed evidence. Kwon became the first relative of Yoo to be indicted on 24 June. He is accused of funneling funds of nearly billion (~ million) into his business after taking out loans with assets of the Evangelical Baptist Church as collateral in 2010, according to prosecutors.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's older brother, Yoo Byung-il (; born ), was the first member of Yoo's family who, on 11 May, appeared for questioning. Byung-il was the managing director of the religious facility called Geumsuwon. Prosecutors said they believed that Byung-il had received consultation fees of million (~) from Chonghaejin Marine each month, and that they had testimonies that he had illegally intervened in the company's management. Byung-il was arrested one month later on 13 June, near Geumsuwon. The prosecution team requested and was granted a pretrial detention warrant for Byung-il on 16 June. On 2 July Byung-il was indicted on embezzlement charges suspected of having received a combined million (~) from Chonghaejin Marine as consulting fees between June 2010 and April 2014.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Shin Myung-hee (; born ), a member of the Evangelical Baptist Church called "Mother Shin" by devotees of the sect, had been wanted by law enforcement authorities under suspicion of masterminding Yoo's escape, and on 13 June turned herself in to authorities in Suwon, Gyeonggi. Shin was detained and in July indicted on charges of playing a major role in helping Yoo evade capture.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: An unnamed person acting for Yoo contacted the Embassy of France in Seoul in late May and asked about the possibility of Yoo seeking political asylum. The embassy declined the request due to Yoo's status as a criminal suspect. Local media outlets said Yoo's middleman also made asylum enquiries at the embassies of the Philippines, the Czech Republic, and Canada.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's eldest brother-in-law, Oh Gabriel (; born ), married to Yoo's younger sister, Yoo Gyeong-hee (; born ), was arrested with his wife on 19 June, allegedly for aiding Yoo's escape. The arrest came following testimony provided by two key adherents of the Evangelical Baptist Church that were arrested earlier in June, saying Oh drove Yoo out of the religious group's commune, Geumsuwon, on 23 April after police surrounded the compound. Oh, who served as the Korean ambassador to the Czech Republic from January 2010 through June 2013, reportedly played a significant role in garnering support for Yoo's photo exhibitions in France. Oh is currently under review by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs's disciplinary committee for allegations that he abused his authority to help Yoo hold a photo exhibition in France and other European countries. The Prosecution suspect that Oh contacted the French Embassy on behalf of Yoo. When questioned, Oh testified that Yoo's family and followers funded and gave him information about the authorities' movements. Oh and his wife were released on 26 June reportedly with the expressed willingness to actively cooperate with the investigation and mediate the surrender of Yoo, and because under Korean criminal law family members to a fugitive cannot be punished for hiding or aiding the suspect.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's wife, Kwon Yun-ja (; born ), was put on the nation's most wanted list in June. She has been the CEO of a door-to-door sales company, Dalgubeol (), in the southern city of Daegu. Kwon was detained in an apartment in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province on 21 June and taken in for questioning on charges of embezzling funds from the Evangelical Baptist Church and her company, reportedly amounting to more than billion () that had been handed over to her husband and her son to expand their business. To keep her in custody, the prosecution asked on 23 June the Incheon District Court to issue an arrest warrant, which was granted on 24 June. On 14 July prosecutors filed embezzlement charges against Kwon.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's younger brother, Yoo Byung-ho (; born ), father-in-law of singer Park Jin-young, was arrested at his residence in Daegu on 22 June. The Court issued a custody warrant on 24 June. Byung-ho is suspected of embezzlement, totaling at least billion (~ million), from Chonghaejin Marine's sister firms, and to have borrowed billion (~ million) from one of the family affiliates, and allegedly made members of the religious group pay back billion (~ million) on his behalf while the affiliate suffered losses of billion (~ million).


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 25 June Lee Seok-hwan (; born ), considered Yoo's "right-hand man," was arrested in a parking lot in Suwon, south of Seoul, after avoiding a manhunt for weeks. An influential member of the Evangelical Baptist Church, Lee is suspected of helping Yoo avoid arrest. A court-issued warrant on Lee was sought on 27 June.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: In mid June 2014, Chonhaiji Co. Ltd., a ship block maker controlled by Yoo's sons, and the major shareholder of Chonghaejin Marine Company with 39.4%, lodged its application for receivership at the Changwon District Court. Chonhaiji had billion (~ million) in outstanding debt to main creditor Korea Development Bank.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: On 27 June the Government of South Korea had calculated the costs in connection with the sinking of the ferry "Sewol" to billion (~ million), and lodged a claim to any properties held directly or by proxy by Yoo and Chonghaejin Marine at the Seoul Central District Court to cover compensation payments for the victims. The Court on 4 July ordered the sequestration of assets owned by Yoo Byung-eun, four officials of Chonghaejin Marine, and eight crew members aboard "Sewol".


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo while on the run purchased around of land near a property in South Jeolla Province where he sought refuge in May, according to prosecutors. He paid million (~) and registered it under the names of the married couple, members of his religious group, who run a rest stop and restaurant near Suncheon and are suspected of aiding Yoo's escape from the law. The Incheon District Court on 2 July ordered in its third decision to temporarily seize an additional billion (~ million) worth of assets owned by Yoo and his family, including the newly acquired property as well as 10 stores in Gangnam District, Seoul, valued at billion (~ million), an apartment owned by Yoo's son Hyuk-kee valued at billion (~ million), and cameras confiscated from a restaurant run by his other son Dae-kyun valued at million (~).


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's first son, Yoo Dae-kyun, was involved in the day-to-day operations of Chonghaejin Marine. He was the biggest shareholder of four affiliates of the family businesses, including the holding company of the operator of "Sewol", I-One-I Holdings. Prosecutors found evidence proving that Dae-kyun received monthly wages from affiliates that he did not own shares of. He is suspected of collecting billions of won in "consulting fees" from the firms and creating a slush fund. Dae-gyun also registered the name "Ohamana" for a sister ferry of the "Sewol". Dae-gyun was wanted on a string of corruption charges and irregularities that are believed to have contributed to the sinking of the "Sewol".


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Dae-kyun bought an airplane ticket to France and was reportedly spotted at Incheon International Airport on 19 April, but didn't board the plane. He was supposed to appear for questioning at the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, but failed to show up. Prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Dae-kyun on 13 May, but investigators were unable to find him. He was placed on the most-wanted list amid fears that he would flee the country. The Court approved on 20 May a proposal by the Prosecution and the National Tax Service to place real estate assets worth billion (~ million) under confiscation. Among the properties was land in the Seocho District and Gangnam District of southern Seoul and two business offices in Gangnam-gu. All properties had been registered in the name of Yoo Dae-kyun. On 22 May the Korean authorities labeled Yoo Byung-eun and Yoo Dae-kyun as fugitives, and initially offered a million (~) reward for Yoo and a million (~) reward for Dae-kyun for information leading to their arrest. On 25 May the rewards were raised to million (~) for the older Yoo and to million (~) for the son, the largest amount ever offered by an investigative authority as a reward in South Korea.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo's second son, Yoo Hyuk-kee, reportedly was involved in the day-to-day managing of Chonghaejin Marine. Hyuk-kee, apart from his stake in I-One-I Holdings, owned some 10 percent stake in Ahae Corp., a paint manufacturing company, and a stake in Ahae Press Corp. As CEO of Ahae Press Inc. in New York, Ahae Press France in Paris, and Ahae Press Ltd. UK in London, he built up his fathers image as a talented photographer, and curated his exhibitions. Hyuk-kee had been summoned for questioning by 8 May, but ignored the summonses. On 23 May an Interpol Red Notice was issued. He is suspected of helping his father establish a slush fund through paper companies.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Hyuk-kee, who is known outside Korea as Keith H. Yoo, was based in the U.S. and, according to sources, either had permanent residence status or held a U.S. citizenship. He left South Korea for the U.S. shortly after the sinking of the "Sewol" on 16 April, and attempted to make his way to France but didn't get on his booked flight. Hyuk-kee and his wife allegedly owned at least three apartments in Manhattan and near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, then estimated to be worth around million (~ billion). The prosecutors asked the United States Department of Homeland Security's Investigations Directorate to track down real estate and deposits under the names of the siblings or affiliates of the family business.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: Yoo was known, due to his reclusiveness, as "the millionaire with no face." He married Kwon Yun-ja (; born ), the daughter of Kwon Shin-chan, in 1966. He had four children with her: daughter Yoo Sum-na (; born 1966), also known as Ennette Yoo, daughter Yoo Sang-na (; born ), son Yoo Dae-kyun (; born ), and second son Yoo Hyuk-kee (; born 1972), also known as Keith H. Yoo.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: South Korean authorities initially offered a million (~) reward for information leading to the arrest of Yoo. On 25 May 2014, the reward was raised tenfold to million (~).


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: In June 2014, South Korean police discovered Yoo's heavily decomposed body in a plum field in Suncheon, a city about south of Seoul. Yoo was wearing an "expensive Italian jacket", and surrounding his body was "a copy of a book he had written, an empty bottle of a shark liver oil health tonic manufactured by a Yoo family company and several empty bottles of alcohol". Initially, the police believed that the body belonged to a homeless man, but further investigation in July 2014 based on analysis of DNA, dental, and fingerprint evidence confirmed that the body was Yoo's.


title: Yoo Byung-eun

text: An investigation into Yoo's cause of death was inconclusive because the body was too decomposed. According to Lee Han-Young, the head of the Central Legal Medical Center, no evidence of alcohol, poison, or external force was found.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011) was an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. Bell worked for first the U.S. Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.


title: Derrick Bell

text: After a decade as a civil rights lawyer, Bell moved into academia where he spent the second half of his life. He started teaching at USC Law School, then moved to Harvard Law School where he became the first tenured African-American professor of law in 1971. From 1991 until his death in 2011, Bell was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law, and a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell developed important scholarship, writing many articles and multiple books, using his practical legal experience and his academic research to examine racism, particularly in the legal system. Bell questioned civil rights advocacy approaches, partially stemming from frustrations in his own experiences as a lawyer. Bell is often credited as one of the originators of critical race theory.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Born to a working-class family in the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1930, Bell was the eldest of four children by Derrick A. Bell Sr. and Ada Elizabeth Bell. Bell was offered a scholarship to Lincoln University, however, could not attend due to the lack of financial aid. Bell would go on to receive a B.A. from Duquesne University making him the first of his family to go to college. In 1952, he would go on to enlist becoming a member of the Duquesne Reserve Officers' Training Corps and later served as an Air Force officer for two years (stationed in Korea for one of those years). In 1957, he received a LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where he was the only Black graduate of his class. In 1960, Bell married Jewel Hairston who was also a Civil Rights activist and educator and they would go on to have three sons: Derrick, Douglas, and Carter. They were married until Jewel's death in 1990 and then he later remarried Janet Dewart.


title: Derrick Bell

text: After graduation and a recommendation from then United States associate attorney general William P. Rogers, Bell took a position with the newly formed Department of Justice in the Honor Graduate Recruitment Program. Due to his interests in racial issues, he transferred to the Civil Rights Division. He was one of the few Black lawyers working for the Justice Department at the time. Bell was the first academic in law that created a casebook that explored and examined the law’s impact and relationship on race and racism. Along with this he examined how race and racism shaped law-making, during a time when connecting these ideas was not considered legitimate.


title: Derrick Bell

text: In 1959, the Justice Department asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Rather than give up his NAACP membership and compromise his principles, Bell left the Justice Department.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell returned to Pittsburgh and joined the local chapter of the NAACP. Soon afterward in 1960, Bell was recruited by Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP'S legal arm and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Bell would join the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Pittsburgh, crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil-rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert L. Carter, and Constance Baker Motley. Bell was assigned to Mississippi where during his trips to the state, he had to be very cautious. For example, once while in Jackson, he was arrested for using a white-only phone booth. After returning to NY, "Marshall mordantly joked that, if he got himself killed in Mississippi, the L.D.F. would use his funeral as a fund-raiser." When Bell was in Mississippi, he provided legal support to Mississippi schools, colleges, voting rights activists, and Freedom Riders. He also supported James Meredith's attempt to attend the Ole Miss Law School in 1962.


title: Derrick Bell

text: While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith to secure admission to the University of Mississippi, over the protests of Governor Ross Barnett. Afterward, he said of this period,"I learned a lot about evasiveness, and how racists could use a system to forestall equality...I also learned a lot riding those dusty roads and walking into those sullen hostile courts in Jackson, Mississippi. It just seems that unless something's pushed unless you litigate, nothing happens."


title: Derrick Bell

text: Later in life, Bell questioned the approach of integration they took in these school cases. Throughout the South, often the winning rulings and the following desegregation caused white flight, and ultimately keeping the schools segregated. Later, as an academic, these practical results led him to conclude that "racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it."


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell spent the second half of his career working in academia until his passing in 2011. Throughout this period of time, he worked at multiple prestigious law schools while simultaneously developing his theories about race, writing multiple books which are now considered the foundation of the field of critical race theory. Bell spent a lot of his time creating more inclusive faculty within institutions such as USC, Harvard, and NYU.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell was known to be respectful of all beliefs and his class was described by his students to be the "least indoctrinated class" in their Law school. Bell would give his students the most freedom to reach their own conclusions and to build their own arguments that could be reasonable, despite their political beliefs.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell's first law faculty position began in 1967 at the USC Gould School of Law of the University of Southern California. There, he succeeded Martin Levine as executive director of the new Western Center on Law and Poverty. Among his notable cases was a class action suit against the Los Angeles Police Department on behalf of the city's black residents. During Bell's directorship, the Western Center's work was recognized in 1971 with a trophy bestowed by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.


title: Derrick Bell

text: In 1969, Black Harvard Law School students helped to get Bell hired. They had protested for a minority faculty member and Derek Bok hired Bell to teach as a lecturer. Bok promised that Bell would be "the first but not the last" of his Black hires. In 1971, Bell became Harvard Law's first Black tenured professor. During his time at Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, "Race, Racism and American Law", and produced a steady stream of law review articles.


title: Derrick Bell

text: In 1980, Bell started a five-year tenure as the Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. There, he also taught a course on Race, Racism and the Law using his textbook of the same name. Later, Bell's tenure was interrupted by his resignation following a protest, due to the University's refusal to hire an Asian American candidate he had chosen for a faculty position.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell's visiting professorship at New York University began in 1991. After his two-year leave of absence, his position at Harvard ended and he remained at NYU where he continued to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights.


title: Derrick Bell

text: During the summer of 1981, under the auspices of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bell conducted a multi-week seminar in Race Relations Law for 14 lawyers and judges from across Oregon.The University of Oregon School of Law was not the only place Bell fought to create a more diverse and inclusive faculty.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Returning to Harvard in 1986, after a year-long stint at Stanford University, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office. The goal was to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two professors on staff, both of whose work promoted critical race theory. The sit-in was widely supported by students, but divided the faculty, as Harvard administrators claimed the professors were denied tenure for substandard scholarship and teaching.


title: Derrick Bell

text: In 1990, Harvard Law School had 60 tenured professors. Three of them were black men and five were women. With that said, none of these women were African-American. Displeased with this dearth of diversity among the faculty, Bell decided to protest with an unpaid leave of absence. Students supported the move which critics found "counterproductive," while Harvard administrators cited a lack of qualified candidates, defending that they had taken great strides in the previous decade to bring in black faculty members.He details the story of this protest in his book "Confronting Authority."


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell's protest at Harvard stirred angry criticism and received a lot of backlash. Opposing Harvard Law faculty called him "a media manipulator who unfairly attacked the school," noting that other people had accused him of "depriv[ing] students of an education while he makes money on the lecture circuit."


title: Derrick Bell

text: Following his leave of absence at Harvard, Bell accepted a visiting professorship at NYU Law in 1991. After two years, Harvard had still not hired any minority women, and Bell requested an extension of his leave, which the school refused, thereby ending his tenure. It was not until later in 1998, Harvard Law hired civil rights attorney and U.S. assistant attorney general nominee Lani Guinier, who became the law school's first black female tenured professor.


title: Derrick Bell

text: In March 2012, five months after his death, Bell became the target of conservative media, including Breitbart and Sean Hannity, in an exposé of President Barack Obama. The controversy focused on a 1990 video of Obama praising Bell at a protest by Harvard Law School students over the perceived lack of diversity in the school's faculty. Bell's widow stated that Bell and Obama had "very little contact" after Obama's law school graduation. She said that as far as she remembered, "He never had contact with the president as president." An examination of Senior Lecturer Obama's syllabus for his course on race and law at the University of Chicago revealed significant differences between Obama's perspective and that of Derrick Bell, even as Obama drew on major writings of critical race theory.


title: Derrick Bell

text: Bell is arguably the most influential source of thought critical of traditional civil rights discourse. Bell's critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal and conservative position on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies. His book "Race, Racism and American Law", now in its sixth edition, has been continually in print since 1973 and is considered foundational in the field of critical race theory.