Korematsu vs. U.S. Korematsu v.

Korematsu vs. U.S.

Korematsu v. United States

The internment of Japanese-Americans is considered to be one of the 'black marks' upon American history, much like the expulsion of the Native American tribes from their historical lands and slavery. Not only was the action of interning individuals -- children and the elderly as well as adults -- simply because of their race an affront to human rights, it is even more shocking and disappointing that the majority of U.S. Supreme Court did nothing to stop it and even sanctioned the government's actions. The majority decision was based in a concept of 'national security,' which would later be invoked many times by the government in the future to curtail individual liberties in the name of 'preserving democracy.' Ironically, in the government's efforts to preserve democracy, rights were trampled and the U.S. perspective reflected the racism that was also characteristic of the Nazis whom it was fighting. This can be seen in the majority decision of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Korematsu v. United States, when the American-born Fred T. Korematsu refused to report to an internment camp and challenged the constitutionality of the federal directive mandating he do so.

Justices Black and Frankfurter, although acknowledging the serious questions that arise when creating laws promoting racial discrimination ultimately argued that "here, as in the Hirabayashi case, we cannot reject as unfounded the judgment of the military authorities and of Congress that there were disloyal members of that population, whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained" (2). In the wake of the bombings of Pearl Harbor, there was intense fear that Japan would attack the mainland. The writings of the court indicated that national security outweighed the rights of Japanese citizens.

Little Constitutional support could be provided for the opinion, except for the vague assertion by Justice Frankfurter: "The provisions of the Constitution which confer on the Congress and the President powers to enable this country to wage war are as much part of the Constitution as provisions looking to a nation at peace" (3). Even while acknowledging that the expulsions of Japanese-Americans were inconsistent with American principles, the authors of the majority decision said that the threat from abroad was 'too great.' This vague, amorphous threat posed by Japanese-Americans to the West Coast, of course, was not similarly seen in the faces of Caucasian German-Americans, against whose nation the U.S. was also in military conflict. As eloquently expressed in the dissent by Justice Murphy: "No adequate reason is given for the failure to treat these Japanese-Americans on an individual basis by holding investigations and hearings to separate the loyal from the disloyal, as was done in the case of persons of German and Italian ancestry" (4). This was unconstitutional racism depriving citizens of due process, not based in any concrete intelligence information.

Interestingly enough, during the war many Japanese-Americans served in and died for the American military forces, despite the fact that their entire race was seen as potential traitors, according to the conception of the U.S. military. The dissent of Justice Roberts expressed this sense of injustice: "On the contrary, it is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry" (3). Also pointed out in the dissent was the fact that it would not have been unwieldy to hold loyalty hearings for those few whom were suspected of treason -- but this was not done, rather it was simply seen as 'safer' to engage in wholesale internment.