Korematsu v. United States - Supreme Court Upholds Japanese Internment

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Korematsu v. United States on December 18, 1944, upholding the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 and the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Justice Hugo Black writes for the majority that military necessity during wartime justifies the mass incarceration of an entire ethnic group, including American citizens, without individual determinations of disloyalty.

Fred Korematsu, an American citizen born in Oakland, California, had refused to report to an assembly center and was arrested in May 1942. He challenged his conviction through the courts, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The case reaches the Supreme Court alongside two companion cases, Hirabayashi v. United States and Yasui v. United States, all testing the constitutionality of the exclusion orders.

Justice Black’s majority opinion applies strict scrutiny to racial classifications for the first time but then applies it with extraordinary deference, accepting the government’s national security claims without meaningful review. Crucially, the Justice Department, led by Solicitor General Charles Fahy, suppresses evidence from the FBI and Office of Naval Intelligence concluding that Japanese Americans posed no security threat. This deliberate concealment of exculpatory evidence would not be revealed until the 1980s.

Justices Frank Murphy, Robert Jackson, and Owen Roberts dissent vigorously. Murphy calls the decision a “legalization of racism” that falls into “the ugly abyss of racism.” Jackson warns that the decision creates a “loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority” to justify oppression based on racial or ethnic identity. Jackson’s dissent proves prophetic as the case establishes precedent for expansive executive power during claimed emergencies.

In 1983, Korematsu’s conviction is vacated after legal historian Peter Irons discovers evidence that the government had suppressed evidence proving Japanese Americans posed no threat. In 2011, the Acting Solicitor General formally files a “confession of error” acknowledging the government’s misconduct. In 2018, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii formally repudiates Korematsu as “gravely wrong,” though critics note the same decision upholds a new form of nationality-based exclusion.