Revisiting Japanese Internment on the Anniversary of ‘Korematsu v. United States’

On December 18th, 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court in deciding against Fred Korematsu, upheld the constitutionality of President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19th, 1942. The order designated certain areas as military zones from which those of Japanese ancestry could be excluded. The court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Order did not explicitly address the issue of how the order was implemented—the incarceration of those excluded—but the practical effect was to permit the internments of those targeted by the order. Constitutional scholars now consider the Korematsu decision to be in the category of Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson decisions as examples of egregious Supreme Court judicial errors.

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