How Is Korematsu Used To Justify Mass Incarceration?
In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court
In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity.
In 1983, Prof. Peter Irons, a legal historian, together with researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944.
The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration.
With this new evidence, a pro-bono legal team that included the Asian Law Caucus re-opened Korematsu’s 40-year-old case on the basis of government …show more content…
District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel vacated Korematsu's conviction and argued that the Korematsu case serves as a "Caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability....".
In 1999, Korematsu received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
US President Donald Trump's executive order to ban immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries is being compared to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Barely two months after the Pearl Harbor attack 1941, nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry residing on the country's western coast were branded a military threat and put inside internment camps across the country.
A 23-year-old Japanese American, Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, defied Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D Roosevelt and went into hiding instead of voluntarily relocating to an internment camp, where conditions were often harsh.
In the wake of September 11, he spoke out against the dangers of racial profiling Arab Americans and urged US leaders not to repeat the wrongs inflicted upon Japanese Americans.
About 70,000 of the Japanese Americans interned during the war were American
In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity.
In 1983, Prof. Peter Irons, a legal historian, together with researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944.
The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration.
With this new evidence, a pro-bono legal team that included the Asian Law Caucus re-opened Korematsu’s 40-year-old case on the basis of government …show more content…
District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel vacated Korematsu's conviction and argued that the Korematsu case serves as a "Caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability....".
In 1999, Korematsu received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
US President Donald Trump's executive order to ban immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries is being compared to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Barely two months after the Pearl Harbor attack 1941, nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry residing on the country's western coast were branded a military threat and put inside internment camps across the country.
A 23-year-old Japanese American, Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, defied Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D Roosevelt and went into hiding instead of voluntarily relocating to an internment camp, where conditions were often harsh.
In the wake of September 11, he spoke out against the dangers of racial profiling Arab Americans and urged US leaders not to repeat the wrongs inflicted upon Japanese Americans.
About 70,000 of the Japanese Americans interned during the war were American