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Korematsu v. United States
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
Korematsu v. United States was a controversial United States Supreme Court case, decided in 1944, that upheld Japanese internment during World War II. The case has been cited as an unprecedented example of racial prejudice and the erosion of individual liberties during wartime in the United States.
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Background
Photo: Ansel Adams
When the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order, numbered 9066, that mandated the incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps. The government called the program "relocation". The reason for the order was that Roosevelt feared Japanese Americans would have questionable loyalty and might conduct espionage against the United States, despite lack of evidence for any such espionage. In total, about 110,000 men, women, and children were incarcerated as a result of the "relocation" program.
Litigation
Fred Korematsu was a Japanese-American who refused to comply with the internment order and sued the United States government, arguing that the executive order violated due process and was racially motivated.
Decision
The Supreme Court decided in favor of the U.S. government and upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans. In a 6-3 decision, Justice Hugo Black ruled that the need to protect the United States from espionage outweighed Korematsu's civil liberties, adding that the internment was not racially motivated. Justice Felix Frankfurter authored a concurrence.
Three justices, Owen Roberts, Robert Jackson, and Frank Murphy each filed a separate dissent. Murphy's dissent was especially scathing, famously commenting that the majority decision "falls into the ugly abyss of racism".
Aftermath
Today, this decision is widely criticized and denounced as a classic example of wartime encroachment on civil liberties. The Congress passed the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act to provide compensation to Japanese properties damaged during the "relocation". In 1980 the Congress opened an investigation to the internment program and a report titled "Personal Justice Denied" was written. The report condemned the "relocation" and the Korematsu court decision. In 2001, the PBS broadcast a Eric Paul Fournier film Of Civil Wrongs and Rights in memory of the Japanese internment and the Korematsu litigation. In 1998, Fred Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton; he died in 2005.
Tom Clark, the coordinator of the relocation program, was nominated to became a Supreme Court justice in 1949. He said he regretted his role in the Japanese internment and referred to it as one of his biggest mistakes. When Clark resigned from the Court in 1967, he was replaced by the first black Justice, Thurgood Marshall.
