Korematsu

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Over eighty years later, the Korematsu v the United States Supreme Court case again tested equality in America. During World War II, Executive Order 9066 was established. This order allowed for the military to separate the country into districts, supposedly for easier protection of citizens. However, Executive Order 9066 was exclusively discriminatory to Asian Americans, specifically those from Japan. Korematsu had received orders to leave his home in California to go to an internment camp, but several days later received orders to stay in his home. Not knowing what to do, Korematsu stayed in his home. Korematsu was charged with ignoring the federal orders. Korematsu argued that the orders were contradictory and that the United States should …show more content…
“He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures.. it must be determined that they should have the power to do this” (Justice Black, Majority Opinion, Korematsu v the United States). Justice Black declared that the military authorities feared another attack by the Japanese and therefore had the power to prevent this attack by any means necessary. This includes segregating certain groups of Americans. However, this was discriminatory because even though there maybe had been a few Japanese spies in America, not all Japanese Americans were spies, but they were treated as such. “And being an exercise of the war power explicitly granted by the Constitution for safeguarding the national life by prosecuting the war effectively, I find nothing in the Constitution which denies to Congress the power to enforce such a valid military order…” (Justice Frankfurter, Majority Opinion, Korematsu v the United States). Both Justice Black and Justice Frankfurter agree that the government is not wrong in discriminating against certain groups of Americans, but it is to protect against future …show more content…
“Being an obvious racial discrimination, the order deprives all those within its scope of the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment” (Justice Murphy, Dissenting Opinion, Korematsu v the United States). The orders were in direct violation of the Fifth Amendment, which protects the accused from double jeopardy and self-incrimination and calls for due process. Korematsu and thousands of other Japanese Americans did not have the due process of law when they were forcibly taken from their homes. The United States military generalized the Japanese American population by declaring if one of them was a traitor, they all were and thereby had to be protected against. The verdict declaring Korematsu guilty is an example of how America’s equality has not evolved from when it first started with Dred
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