Race-Based Internment and Korematsu Essay

The internment of Nipponese-Ameri arseholes following the Japanese attack on os Harbor was shameful not only because of the fact that it was allowed to happen, but loosely because it was a field of study public policy joined in by all subsectiones of the American government. President Roosevelt initiated the policy as the head of the decision maker sleeve by issuing decision maker orders declaring zones of excision for people of Japanese backgrounds, curfews, and even relocation programs to what some scholars rich person referred to as quasi-concentration camps.The legislative branch failed to protect the rights of these Japanese Americans instead, On March 21, 1942, Congress ratified and support Executive Order No. 9066, which authorized criminal penalties for persons disobeying exclusion orders (Justl, 2009, p. 272). Ultimately, with both(prenominal)(prenominal) the executive and legislative branches having failed to protect or defend the rights of American citizens of Japanese channel, the unify States Supreme Court would be called upon to decide whether these orders and policies were in impact of the American character.To be sure, the notion that Americans could be rounded up and compelled through with(predicate) force to confined in internment camps seems to offend the dearest principles of American liberty and justice. Hoping that the judicial branch would extend the constitutional guarantees to American citizens of Japanese ancestry, a man named Korematsu filed suit alleging that these orders and policies violated the American constitution in a gaucherie now well-known as Korematsu v. United States. This fact case originated when an American citizen, who was born and raised in San Francisco, openly stand firm to obey the exclusion order issued by President Roosevelt.Korematsu was loyal to the United States, having volunteered for military service though rejected because of health limitations, and there existed short no evidence that he posed even a youngster threat to American national security. He was allegedly subject to the exclusion order purely because of is Japanese ancestry. Korematsu was gainfully employed, he had a young lady who was not of Japanese ancestry, and he took deliberate steps to avoid and posterior challenge the constitutionality of the exclusion order. Ultimately, he was arrested and relocated to an internment camp.Specifically, he was arrested because he refused to leave an area open to others but closed to those of Japanese ancestry and because he refused to voluntarily report to an internment camp. The judicial branch, like the executive and legislative branches before, failed to protect the rights of Japanese-Americans indeed, the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion order and Korematsus conviction (Justl, 2009, p. 274). Significantly, however, the Supreme Courts decision was a half a dozen to three majority rather than a unanimous decision.The majority good that war constituted a national need and that certain laws and orders designed to prevent spying or sabotage were sufficient bases upon which to recoil or eliminate individual rights protected in the constitution for the duration of the emergency. This case and its rationale still functions as a landmark type of solutionual case because it stands for the proposition that the constitutional rights of Americans can be set asideed in periods of national emergency.The minority opinions, recorded in dissents in the Korematsu case, argued that these laws were racialist that they offended American ideals, and that the rights guaranteed by the American constitution ought to always commit regardless of alleged fears and national emergencies. This case effectively allows the judicial branch to relinquish its sacred duties as guardian of the constitution in national emergencies this, in turn, gives the executive and legislative branches powers perhaps not intended when the founders of the constitution sought t o create a stable balance of powers.In the terminal analysis, the Korematsu case is troubling because it stands for a legal principle that transcends its origins. More particularly, it can be seen in contemporary times that the War on scare has been used as an indefinite type of national emergency to restrict or eliminate rights for American citizens even though the main enemies have been defined as foreign nationals. Arab-Americans and Muslims have in this way replaced the Japanese-Americans of World-War Two.Additionally, the modern oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been treated as a type of environmental national emergency and the media has been restricted by the American Coast Guard from covering the story on-site. Korematsu is a tragedy both because of the individual harm done to Fred Korematsu and because it continues to stand for a proposition to the effect that politicians can cry national emergency in order to suspend or eliminate constitutional rights for different cla sses of American citizens.It is perhaps time that the Supreme Court reasserts its intended role as a uncoiled guardian of the constitution by accepting a case ambitious the Korematsu precedent so that it can eliminate the vague national emergency exception. References Justl, J. M. (2009). Disastrously Misunderstood Judicial Deference in the Japanese-American Cases. Yale Law Journal, 119(2), 270+. Retrieved June 2, 2010, from Questia database http//www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=5036190287