After Pearl Harbor, in 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed, requiring Japanese and Japanese-American citizens living in the Western states to sell their businesses, sell their homes, and then report to Assembly Centers so they could be relocated to detention camps across America.
Fred Korematsu was a 23-year-old Japanese-American born in California. After receiving orders to begin packing up, his parents abandoned their home and leased their business so they could report for relocation. Fred decided to remain in the Bay Area, even getting plastic surgery on his eyes, claiming Hawaiian and Spanish heritage, and going by the name Clyde Sarah (Fred T. Korematsu Institute, n.d.). All of these efforts were in hopes that he would not be removed from his home.
On May 30th, he was arrested for failing to report to an Assembly Center. While being held, he was visited by an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). This lawyer offered to help Korematsu challenge the constitutionality of his arrest (National Park Service, 2023). After a Federal Court trial, he was charged with violating military orders and was given five years on probation.
Two years later, in 1944, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction. United States Courts, a government website, says, “a divided Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, that the detention was a ‘military necessity’ that was not based on race” (Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. U.S., n.d.). So, using this argument, they decided that they didn’t need to even look into possible constitutional racial discrimination issues. Detaining Japanese Americans was officially given the legal “okay” as long as it was based on military necessity. The three justices that did not agree and wrote strong dissenting opinions, with Justice Robert Jackson saying, “Korematsu ... has been convicted of an act not commonly thought a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.” He also called the exclusion order “the legalization of racism” (Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. U.S., n.d.).
Jumping to 1983, with the help of research conducted by lawyer Peter Irons, Korematsu was connected to a pro bono legal team that helped re-open his case. They now had new evidence that the US government had suppressed or destroyed information that showed Japanese Americans were not a military threat at the time of their detainment (Hinnershitz, 2024). This directly attacked and contradicted previous claims that Korematu’s arrest was a military one and not based on race.
Bibliography:
Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. U.S. (n.d.). United States Courts. https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/annual-observances.
Fred T. Korematsu Institute. (n.d.). Fred Korematsu’s Story: Abbreviated Biography. Fred’s Story. https://korematsuinstitute.org/freds-story/.
Hinnershitz, Stephanie. (2024, November 7). Korematsu v. United States: 80 Years Later. The National WWII Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/korematsu-v-united-states.
National Park Service. (2023, July 7). Fred T. Korematsu. Golden Gate National Recreation Area. https://www.nps.gov/people/fred-t-korematsu.htm.
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