Korematsu v. United States

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1944 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the internment of Japanese Americans

1944 United States Supreme Court case

Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that upheld the exclusion of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast Military Area during World War II , an exclusion that led to the internment of Japanese Americans . The decision has been widely criticized,[1] with some scholars describing it as "an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry"[2] and "a stain on American jurisprudence".[3] The case is often cited as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time .[4] [5] [6]

In the aftermath of Imperial Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor , President Franklin D. Roosevelt had issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the U.S. War Department to create military areas from which any or all Americans might be excluded. Subsequently, the Western Defense Command , a U.S. Army military command charged with coordinating the defense of the West Coast of the United States , ordered "all persons of Japanese ancestry, including aliens and non-aliens" to relocate to internment camps . However, a 23-year-old Japanese-American man, Fred Korematsu , refused to leave the exclusion zone and instead challenged the order on the grounds that it violated the Fifth Amendment .

In a majority opinion joined by five other justices, Associate Justice Hugo Black held that the need to protect against espionage by Japan outweighed the rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Black wrote that "Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race", but rather "because the properly constituted military authorities ... decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast" during the war against Japan. Dissenting justices Frank Murphy , Robert H. Jackson , and Owen J. Roberts all criticized the exclusion as racially discriminatory ; Murphy wrote that the exclusion of Japanese "falls into the ugly abyss of racism" and resembled "the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy."

The Korematsu opinion was the first instance in which the Supreme Court applied the strict scrutiny standard of review to racial discrimination by the government; it is one of only a handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met this standard. Korematsu's conviction was voided by a California district court in 1983 on the grounds that Solicitor General Charles H. Fahy had suppressed a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence which stated there was no evidence that Japanese Americans were acting as spies for Japan. The Japanese-Americans who were interned were later granted reparations through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 . In _Trump v. Hawaii _ (2018), the Supreme Court overruled Korematsu v. United States.[7]

Background

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Japanese American Assembly Center at Tanforan race track, San Bruno

In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the report of the First Roberts Commission , President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the War Department to create military areas from which any or all Americans might be excluded, and to provide for the necessary transport, lodging, and feeding of persons displaced from such areas. On March 2, 1942, the U.S. Army Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt , commander of the Western Defense Command , issued Public Proclamation No. 1, demarcating western military areas and the exclusion zones therein, and directing any "Japanese , German , or Italian aliens" and any person of Japanese ancestry to inform the U.S. Postal Service of any changes of residence.[8] Further military areas and zones were demarcated in Public Proclamation No. 2.

In the meantime, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson mailed to Senator Robert Rice Reynolds and House Speaker Sam Rayburn draft legislation authorizing the enforcement of Executive Order 9066. By March 21, Congress had enacted the proposed legislation, which Roosevelt signed into law.[9] On March 24, 1942, Western Defense Command began issuing Civilian Exclusion orders, commanding "all persons of Japanese ancestry, including aliens and non-aliens" report to designated assembly points. With the issuance of Civilian Restrictive Order No. 1 on May 19, 1942, Japanese Americans were forced to move into relocation camps .[10]

Meanwhile, Fred Korematsu was a 23-year-old Japanese-American man who decided to stay at his residence in San Leandro, California , instead of obeying the order to relocate; however, he knowingly violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army , even undergoing plastic surgery in an attempt to conceal his identity.[11] Korematsu argued that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and was thus unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment was selected over the Fourteenth Amendment due to the lack of federal protections in the Fourteenth Amendment. He was arrested and convicted. No question was raised as to Korematsu's loyalty to the United States. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit eventually affirmed his conviction,[12] and the Supreme Court granted _certiorari _.

Decision

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Black's majority opinion

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Justice Hugo Black

The decision of the case, written by Justice Hugo Black , found the case largely indistinguishable from the previous year's _Hirabayashi v. United States _ decision, and rested largely on the same principle: deference to Congress and the military authorities, particularly in light of the uncertainty following Pearl Harbor. Justice Black further denied that the case had anything to do with racial prejudice:

Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area

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