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📘 Korematsu began with a wartime exclusion order

Korematsu v.

4
lessons
~20 min
to learn
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. The order and the personExplain the order and the person in this Supreme Court case.How Executive Order 9066, exclusion notices, and Fred Korematsu produced the case
  2. The Court's reasoningExplain the court's reasoning in this Supreme Court case.Why the 1944 majority accepted a racial exclusion as military necessity
  3. The dissents and later correctionExplain the dissents and later correction in this Supreme Court case.How the dissents, later evidence, and redress challenged the judgment
  4. What the decision means nowExplain what the decision means now in this Supreme Court case.Why Korematsu has been repudiated and what its warning requires today

Questions this course answers

What did Fred Korematsu violate?

Korematsu was convicted for remaining in an area covered by a military exclusion order.

What did Executive Order 9066 authorize?

The order authorized military commanders to prescribe military areas and restrictions.

What constitutional standard did the majority say racial restrictions require?

The opinion said racial restrictions are immediately suspect and require the most rigid scrutiny.

Why did the majority uphold the exclusion order?

The majority treated the exclusion as a temporary wartime measure tied to military necessity.

What was Justice Murphy's central criticism?

Murphy's dissent rejected the military label and described the policy as racial discrimination.

What did the 1983 coram nobis proceeding do?

A federal court set aside the conviction after evidence of government misconduct emerged.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), Supreme Court opinion and dissents: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214
  • Executive Order 9066, National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066
  • Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Congress.gov: https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442
  • Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667 (2018), Supreme Court opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
  • Fred Korematsu's Story, Fred T. Korematsu Institute: https://korematsuinstitute.org/freds-story/
  • Japanese American Internment, National Archives research guide: https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans

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