Unanimous Court Case Analysis

Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice George Sutherland approved a line of lower court cases that held that "the words 'white person' were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race." Because in ordinary usage, the Japanese were not considered Caucasian, these courts had held, the Japanese were not "free white persons" within the meaning of the law. Justice Sutherland wrote that the lower courts' conclusion that the Japanese were not "free white persons" for purposes of naturalization had “become so well established by judicial and executive concurrence and legislative acquiescence that we should not at this late day feel at liberty to disturb it, in the absence of reasons far more cogent than any that