Korematsu v. United States (1944)

Korematsu v. United States was a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on December 18, 1944, that upheld the confinement of individuals of [Page 1302]Japanese ancestry in the United States to internment camps. Korematsu is one of the most controversial decisions ever issued by the U.S. Supreme Court because of the racial nature of the decision. It is also the most famous of the Japanese internment cases.

The Korematsu case began when Fred Kore-matsu, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was arrested for failing to leave San Leandro, California, an area designated as a military zone by Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34. Korematsu decided to evade and then challenge his confinement by refusing to report for confinement as ordered by the U.S. military. Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 was issued on May 9, 1942. The order was the result of the military conflict between the United States and Japan, which officially began on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked the U.S. naval base located at Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i. As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Executive Order 9066 authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan under the policy of military necessity.

It afforded the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a 50-to 60-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington State to California, extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington State, and Oregon. The same executive order (and other wartime orders and restrictions) was also applied to smaller numbers of U.S. residents of Italian or German descent.

For example, 3,200 resident aliens of Italian background were arrested, and more than 300 of them were interned. About 11,000 German residents—including some naturalized citizens—were arrested, and more than 5,000 were interned. These wartime measures were most sweeping for Japanese Americans because they uprooted entire communities, targeting citizens and resident aliens.