Talk:Korematsu v. United States

Strict scrutiny

Strict scrutiny is survived in more than a handful of cases. If that sentence indicates that laws fail strict scrutiny of racial issues frequently, I cannot argue either way without data. However, 30% of strict scrutiny cases in general survive, making it far more than "just a handful" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=897360 (and the strict scrutiny wiki page) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.24.251.13 (talk) 20:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Untitled

Amusingly touched on by Lord Bingham in the sixth Sir David Williams Lecture, "The Rule of Law": "In our country, and in the United States, decisions have been made of which neither country can be proud.48 ... 48 [...] in the United States, notably, Korematsu v United States 323 US 214 (1944) a decision which Scalia J has put on a par with that in Dred Scott, thereby assigning it to the lowest circle in Hades." - 210.84.26.218 (talk) 07:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

helur wut up homies —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.169.76.10 (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the page needs to be longer

I agree. Is there anyone doing a research paper on Korematsu v. United States? Even the background information of the case isn't very thorough. I'll have to do some more research for this article. Baltakatei 16:50, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I added a bit to it. --67.186.146.170 21:51, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC) - this is User:Alxt

Well who cares how long it is as long as we get the information am i not right.

---

lol. who put "Apple Pie is great" in there? dork :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.232.116 (talk) 13:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

POV?

"This case was the only one in which racial discrimination in the United States has been upheld despite the strict scrutiny standard."

This sentence seems POV to me. Literally, yes it's true, but discrimination is a loaded word and implies other connotations such as racial prejudice. The Court's Opinion clearly stated that they did not believe that the case was a case of racial prejudice, but rather a neccesity in times of war. I'ld say this sentence is trying to give a conclusion instead of letting the readers make their own conclusion.Ziiv 12:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Beyond your fair point, the case isn't the "only one in which racial discrimination in the United States has been upheld despite the strict scrutiny standard." 2003's Grutter v. Bollinger also a race-based discrimination scheme at the University of Michigan Law School after applying the strict scrutiny test. "Discrimination" is loaded here, too, but applicable. I suggest striking the entire sentence, or revising it to reference Grutter.

Another case was Plessy v. Fergusen. This was the "separate but equal" doctrine used by the South before Brown v. Board of Education. Clearly the Korematsu case was not the only case involving the sanction of discrimination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.64.0.252 (talk) 14:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've edited this for accuracy and to sidestep the whole NPOV issue. In fact, regardless of whether one considers Grutter to be a legitimation of "racial discrimination," one other modern Supreme Court case has upheld the use of race-based classifications: Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943). --Lawt 08:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Race never was a factor in either Korematsu or Hirabyashi. It has only become one because of latter-day obsessions with race discrimination, real and imagined. Nationality was the guiding factor in the relocation of persons of Japanese descent during WWII and the SC decisions reflect that. We were at war with Japan. Two thirds of the adult persons of Japanese ancestry living in the military areas of the West Coast at the time of Pearl Harbor were Japanese nationals, enemy aliens subject to detention under long-standing international law. In addition, well over half of the American-born of Japanese descent were also Japanese citizens under Japanese law. Thousands of young Japanese-Americans had been educated in Japan, returning to this country more Japanese than American. And there was ample evidence that Japanese agents in unknown numbers were among them.

              The problem faced by the wartime government was who 

was who and time to find out was short. So the government moved them all from sensitive military areas. But thousands of persons of Japanese descent who did lot live in the prescribed military areas. Those were not moved or disturbed at all. If race had been the reason behind FDR's EO9066, common sense dictates that ALL persons of Japanese descent would have been put in relocation or internment camps. They were not.--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Retofficer (talk • contribs) 18:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.125.221 (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of "P.O.V."

I was stunned that so little space was given to the discussion of the 1983 case ... I don't have the legal background to put together a proper exposition, but it's an amazing story that deserves more than it gets in this article. I will at least put a link to the episode of PBS's show P.O.V. that tells the story of the 1983 case. Lawikitejana 20:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Second sentence

the second sentence in the lead section makes absolutely no sense. it's so bad i can't rewrite it because i can't figure out what the writer meant.it's not even legalese.Toyokuni3 (talk) 05:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

GA review

I am quick-failing this article because of the presence of a cleanup banner. Since April, the article has been tagged as needing additional references. Please ensure that it is thoroughly referenced before its next nomination. References should also be placed after punctuation and should be formatted properly. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for the {{cite web}} template.

Please note that this is not a thorough review and that other problems may exist with the article. I recommend placing it for peer review before it is renominated. GaryColemanFan (talk) 05:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm amazed anyone would even try to get this entry GA status in its current state. If nothing else, there is absolutely ZERO discussion of the saga of the 1983 coram nobis petition — how it started, what it accomplished, nothing. It's a huge part of the story of this case. Now, before anyone tells me to "be bold," let me state that it's so big I don't feel capable of doing it justice myself. Someone with access to the documentary Of Civil Wrongs and Rights would be ideal, as they could use it as a source, but at minimum, the article will not be a GA so long as it doesn't cover the petition that got the plaintiff the next best thing to having the case overturned completely.Lawikitejana (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Subsequent history "POV"

I personally believe that the decision in Korematsu was wrong, and I think that an argument can be made that the road to Guantanamo started there. But that's a subjective point of view...just as was the statement in the previous edit that Justice Jackson's fears have not been borne out. I think that this section needs references to specific articles that state the opposing points of view. LegalBeagle (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

What the case held

Justice Black, in his opinion, held that "...the need to protect against espionage outweighed Korematsu's rights." He admitted to the act being "suspect....though is justified in cases of emergency and peril." So while the Supreme Court never actually stated the relocation centers were legal, they implied it.

Ex Parte Endo

Ex Parte Endo was released the same day as Korematsu v. US and also concerns Japanese internment. It basically says that Endo, being loyal to the US, could not be interned any longer. In other words, the government could intern Japanese-Americans (according to Korematsu v. US) but couldn't keep them interned if they proved to be loyal citizens (Ex Parte Endo). Clearly, Korematsu v. US does not provide a complete picture, so I feel that Ex Parte Endo should be mentioned in this article.

Discrepancy between article and source?

The source for the following line appears to contradict it:

The Korematsu decision has not been explicitly overturned, although in 2011 the Department of Justice filed official notice [4], conceding that it was in error, thus erasing the case's value as precedent for interning citizens.

The source in question states:

The Supreme Court upheld Hirabayashi’s and Korematsu’s convictions. And it took nearly a half century for courts to overturn these decisions.

My legal knowledge is lacking, but I read this as stating that the courts have explicitly overturned Korematsu v. United States, am I missing something?OakRunner (talk) 03:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

edit: I notice this article also states "Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned on November 10, 1983, after Korematsu challenged the earlier decision by filing for a writ of coram nobis". Can we clarify what this means? Does it mean his conviction was overturned, but the Supreme Court's ruling in Korematsu v. US was not overturned?OakRunner (talk) 03:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

My wikipedia knowledge is lacking, but the Solicitor General was referring to overturning Fred Korematsu's conviction for violating the exclusion order. The Korematsu supreme court decision has never been overturned, and hasn't been challenged to my knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.231.184.30 (talk) 02:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Format?

Should the second paragraph in the Decision be in quotes? Otherwise it seems to me like it would be confusing at first Shrillpicc100 (talk) 09:03, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it is formatted with the template {{quote}}. Graham87 06:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Questionable accuracy

The fourth lead paragraph claims that "in 2011 the Department of Justice filed official notice[4], conceding that it was in error, thus erasing the case's value as precedent for interning citizens."

Nothing in the linked source states that it is an "official notice" or that such notice "erases the case's value as precedent." The Justice Department is not capable of "erasing a case's value as precedent" - only the Supreme Court can do that by overruling a prior decision. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.98.192.162 (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Unnecessary Link Splitting

The link to List of landmark court decisions in the United States is confined to the single word "landmark" in the opening section of this article, while the proceeding words, "United States Supreme Court", link to Supreme Court of the United States. Seeing how in the former linked article, landmark decisions are described as coming "most frequently from the Supreme Court[,]" and how nearly all of the cases listed therein are Supreme Court cases, I propose the latter link be removed, and the text for the first one be extended to include, "United States Supreme Court case". Ex.: "Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case..."

If readers still want to go to the article specifically dedicated to the Supreme Court, the linked article above contains a WikiLink to it in the opening. As it stands, there's no real compatibility or stylistic reason why the WikiLink for the noun you're discussing ('landmark supreme court case') is truncated to the foremost word of that noun — in fact, one could say that such truncation is harmful to readers, who most likely intend to go to the List of landmark court decisions in the United States when they click on what appears to be a single link, but can easily and absentmindedly click on the second, much more space-consuming link (a total of 5/6 of term), as I did. If they notice before leaving the page that the link was split in two, this is inefficient because they will most likely have to read part of the article they navigated to in order to first confirm it isn't the correct one before navigating back to this page; if they don't notice, then we have failed in our goal of informing people about what they want to be informed about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crossark (talk • contribs) 22:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. Sounds reasonable to me; I've fixed it. Graham87 06:34, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Koramatsu v. US

What has been concealed is the major role of that Liberal icon Earl Warren in this shameful episode. He was atty. general in California--running for governor and campaigned to jail all Japanese. (Many of his buddies were able to scarf up Japanese properties as a result.) So ignorant and racist was this man (as his later Supreme Court cases confirm)that in congressional hearings J. Edgar Hoover (who was, after all, then in charge of counter-espionage)testified that there wasn't a single known act of espionage or sabotage by a Japanese in the U.S. Warren's response? "That just shows you how organized they are--they're waiting for the right moment." I honestly believe that Warren's later looney liberal Supreme Court decisions were some kind of penance for the horrible crimes he had earlier committed. Rot in Hell! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:C300:7E6C:E0F6:8DAF:C1BB:62E5 (talk) 21:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Sotomayor seems to acknowledge that the decision *does* overrule Korematsu. On page 28 of the dissent, "Today, the Court takes the important step of finally overruling Korematsu". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2C7:480:13D4:3562:D253:73D1:10E1 (talk) 03:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Opinion pieces and Coatrack issues

• WP:RS says not to use opinion pieces as reliable sources
• WP:NPOV says not to push opinion pieces into wikipedia body text, or give undue weight to synthesis of opinion pieces.
• WP:COATRACK means that articles on Korematsu should mention Korematsu in the body text.

Huffington Post blog articles do not meet RS.

-- Callinus (talk) 01:56, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

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Trump v. Hawaii

CJ Roberts' opinion for the Court in Trump v. Hawaii puts the court on the record as agreeing that Korematsu was wrongly decided. (It's dicta, but he was responding to Sotomayor's dissent which compares the case at issue to Korematsu.)18.26.0.5 (talk) 14:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

We should remove this. Trump v. Hawaii didn't overrule Korematsu. From Lyle Denniston: “While two dissenting Justices praised the Court for ‘finally overruling’ that 1944 precedent, the majority did not actually do so, for several reasons,” Denniston said. “First, there was no request by the parties in the case to do that in this case so that was not an issue before the Justices; second, the language of an explicit overruling was not used; third, the majority said that the ruling ‘has been overruled by history’ -- which is not the same as an actual overturning of the precedent. The majority's negative sentiments about it are what judges and lawyers call ‘dicta’ -- statements made in a court opinion that do not affect the actual outcome.” A case is only overruled when the court is asked to overrule it and does so explicitly. Roberts never wrote "Korematsu v. United States is overruled." 4.28.133.129 (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that it incorrect that Trump v. Hawaii overruled Korematsu. It may be somewhat pedantic from a lay perspective since Hawaii is an explicit disavowal of Korematsu by the majority, the statement that the holding of Korematsu is no longer good law is clearly dictum and is not part of the holding. There are many cases in the class of Korematsu which are quite clearly no longer good law but have not yet been explicitly overruled. On the contrary, the majority is responding to the dissent to distinguish Korematsu. Somewhat ironically, the "strict scrutiny" dicta articulated in Korematsu is good law which has been repeatedly upheld. NTK (talk) 22:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

If someone wants to assert that Korematsu was overruled, they need to provide a third party reliable source, which dicta is not.  Jonathunder (talk) 16:08, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

De Vogue in CNN that we cite says (emphasis added): ". . . but in the process -- thanks to a heated argument with Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- finally overturned the infamous 1944 Supreme Court decision blessing internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II." Savage in NYT, that we also cite (emphasis added: ". . . Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. also seized the moment to finally overrule Korematsu." One may want to tone this language down and avoid explicitly stating that it was overruled/overturned (based on a technical/legal usage rather than a common-language usage of the expression) but it is completely illegitimate to use these two sources that both say, in as many words, that it was overruled/overturned as the basis for a sentence that says they did not explicitly overrule it. If the sentence is to be predicated by the bold statement that it was not explicitly overturned, we need ad different reference. Agricolae (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Numerous third party reliable sources say the ruling was overruled. Per Jerome A. Cohen as quoted by NBC News: "Jerome A. Cohen, a law professor at NYU School of Law and former Supreme Court clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren — who was attorney general of California when Roosevelt's executive order was made — and Justice Felix Frankfurter, said this was the most "express repudiation one could expect from the Supreme Court." "It has overturned Korematsu, definitively," he said."

And here's a slew of third party reliable sources in addition to NBC News as I noted above and CNN and New York Times as Agricolae noted above:

• "The Supreme Court Tuesday overruled a notorious 1944 decision allowing internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans..."I don't think there's any doubt that the Court has overruled Korematsu in today's decision," said Pratik Shah, a Washington-based attorney who had fought the travel ban." USA Today
• "The court upheld Trump's travel ban and overturned Korematsu's case." Washington Post
• "In Tuesday's majority opinion upholding President Donald Trump's travel ban, the Supreme Court also overturned a long-criticized decision that had upheld the constitutionality of Japanese-American internment during World War II." Time Magazine
• "The Supreme Court just quietly overturned a decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as part of a ruling upholding President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban that primarily targets majority-Muslim countries." Business Insider

OCNative (talk) 08:22, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

This article (here: Did the Supreme Court just overrule the Korematsu decision?) indicates that Korematsu was not "officially" or "legally" overturned by Trump v. Hawaii. However, the Supreme Court's strong rebuke of Korematsu in the Hawaii case "overrules" Korematsu as a practical (but not a legal) matter. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Is this a distinction we need to make explicit when even the Sotomayor dissent doesn't? Do we really give one analyst's opinion this kind of weight in the face of all of the sources saying otherwise? Once a body of scholarship develops, we may have a better idea of how this is represented by the larger legal community, but at this point I think it would better represent the weight of sources to simply avoid being explicit, either way. If, however, an explicit statement is to be made, it must include a new citation because the citations we now have do not state that they failed to overturn it. Agricolae (talk) 13:57, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it would be encyclopedic to indicate whether or not a case was overturned, yes. That is one of the most basic -- and significant -- details about any case (and even more so, a Supreme Court case). The citation I offered above does state that they (the Court) failed to overturn Korematsu. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

What is most important is that it has been completely repudiated. Whether this constitutes a formal overturning is less important, particularly when to draw this distinction involves taking the position of one web page saying it hasn't - basically one person's opinion - in preference to a landslide of sources (including the dissenting opinion on Trump) saying it has. With time, when we know how this is going to be portrayed by the larger legal community, the question can be revisited, but as of now, the weight of sources is on it having been overturned. I understand that this may be viewed as technically inaccurate, but we don't get to draw that conclusion ourselves and we don't get to give the one source that says otherwise undue weight. The most we can do is make the point clear that it has been completely rejected without getting into the technical semantics. Agricolae (talk) 00:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Here is another source:

According to Harvard University's Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Noah Feldman, "a decision can be wrong at the very moment it was decided—and therefore should not be followed subsequently." Justice Anthony Kennedy applied this approach in Lawrence v. Texas to overturn Bowers v. Hardwick and thereby strike down anti-sodomy laws in 14 states. The implication is that decisions which are wrong when decided should not be followed even before the Court reverses itself, and Korematsu has probably the greatest claim to being wrong when decided of any case which still stood. Legal scholar Richard Primus applied the term "Anti-Canon" to cases which are "universally assailed as wrong, immoral, and unconstitutional" and have become exemplars of faulty legal reasoning. Plessy v. Ferguson is one such example, and Korematsu has joined this group—as Feldman then put it, "Korematsu's uniquely bad legal status means it's not precedent even though it hasn't been overturned."

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Another source for what? Feldman wrote in 2016, so this can't possibly bear on its current status, post Trump. Agricolae (talk) 00:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

So basically, we have a single source, National Constitution Center quoting Journalist Lyle Denniston, saying Korematsu has not been overturned while CNN, New York Times, NBC News (with a quote from law professor Jerome A. Cohen), USA Today, Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Business Insider all say it has been overturned, as has Justice Sotomayor. I think the consensus is that Korematsu has been overturned. OCNative (talk) 00:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, yes, but this is a consensus of journalists, mostly writing within 24 hrs, and not the considered consensus of the legal community. Time will tell what the latter will be, and I just don't see a need to force the issue either way, when by using less legalistic wording we get the point across adequately. Agricolae (talk) 01:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Right. It is possible for most journalists, including in sources that would be considered reliable secondary sources per WP standards, to collectively get it wrong. On technical topics this happens all the time. There are now a lot of articles out there, including Wikipedia at this moment, that state that Trump v. Hawaii overruled Korematsu. That's incorrect. Trump v. Hawaii stands for the proposition that Korematsu is clearly no longer good law (which has long been consensus already), and it explicitly repudiates and disavows Korematsu, but it does not and cannot overrule it; in fact it says this explicitly: "Whatever rhetorical advantage the dissent may see in doing so, Korematsu has nothing to do with this case." (p.38, slip opinion). A decision cannot overrule another decision that has "nothing to do with it" and that is explicitly distinguished (U.S. courts including SCOTUS constitutionally decide only "cases and controversies" before them; they cannot change inapplicable law). The dicta repudiating Korematsu is just that, dicta to make plain that the court agrees that Korematsu is already no longer good law: "Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history" (ibid). To say that it was Trump v. Hawaii that actually "overruled" Korematsu in legal terms is to change the meaning of the term "overruled" in the legal context. The Trump and Korematsu articles should reference one another but the statement that Trump "overruled" or "overturned" Korematsu should be changed. NTK (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

SFFA v. Harvard footnote 3

In Footnote 3 of his majority opinion in SFFA v. Harvard, Chief Justice Roberts writes:

We have since overruled Korematsu, recognizing that it was “gravely wrong the day it was decided.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 38).

Is this enough to conclude that the statements made in Trump v. Hawaii are more than just dicta? Glad Tidings from New York (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

No. It was definitely dicta. Chief Justice definitely got this wrong, although, I'm not sure how to handle it. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)