Judge who issued travel ban ruling is Obama law classmate

U.S. District Judge Derrick Kahala Watson, who halted President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban Wednesday, is a 1984 graduate of Kamehameha Schools who was in President Barack Obama’s class at Harvard Law School.

Watson, 50, was appointed by Obama in November 2012 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2013. Watson said in a June 2013 interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he never met Obama at Harvard and knew him only as head of the school’s law review.

Watson was the sole Native Hawaiian sitting on the federal bench when he was confirmed in 2013 and only the fourth Native Hawaiian to serve as a federal judge.

After graduating from Kamehameha, Watson went to Harvard for both his undergraduate and law degrees. He then spent nearly two decades practicing law in California.

Watson returned to Hawaii and became an assistant U. S. attorney in the District of Hawaii in 2007.

He is the son of retired Honolulu police Sgt. Clarence Watson Jr. and Jasmine Watson, a retired bank teller.