Chief Justice Roberts Condemns Notorious Korematsu Decision, But Does Not Overrule It
Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court on this day sharply condemned the Court’s notorious Korematsu decision, seventy four years after it was decided, but did not explicitly overrule it.
In Korematsu, the Court upheld in a 6-3 decison the U.S. Government’s forced evacuation of Japanese-Americans during World War. Roberts wrote that
“Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—’has no place in law under the Constitution‘ [quoting Justice Robert Jackson’s dissent in Korematsu].”
Robert’s words came in response to a reference to Korematsu in the dissent in Trump v. Hawaii, decided on this day, in which the Court upheld President Donald Trump’s “anti-Muslim” immigration ban.
In response to a reference to Korematsu in a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Roberts stated that Korematsu “has nothing to do with this case,” which is true since that case dealt with the evacuation of American citizens and not restrictions on the immigration of foreign nationals to the U.S. Roberts then went on to condemn the Korematsu decision but without explicitly overturning it.
Read a valuable commentary on the Trump v. Hawaii decision.
Read Justice Roberts’ opinion in Trump v. Hawaii.
Read Justice Sotomayor’s dissent.
Learn about the Japanese American evacuation and internment: Peter Irons, Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese-American Internment Cases (1983)
And more: Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (2001)