KOREMATSU VS USA

CASE BACKGROUND

• Time: Early in World War II, on February 19, 1942
• President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066
• Placed Japanese Americans on the west coast in internment camps
• Fred Korematsu refused to leave his home in California. He went to court and in 1944 his case reached the Supreme Court.

Constitutional Question raised: Is it constitutional to put someone in a camp just because of their race?

DECISION OF THE COURT

• the Supreme Court held that holding Japanese Americans in internment camps was constitutional.
• Dissent: Jackson stated that this man did not commit a crime and just happened to be living in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong race.
• The second part of this dissent: But, arresting citizens during war is sometimes necessary and the judicial branch has very little power to stop it.

Significance of the case : *Korematsu was different than any other case in Supreme Court history because it was the only case where even after the Court used a strict test for possible racism, the court upheld the restriction of civil liberties.

BROWN VS BOARD OF EDUCATION

CASE BACKGROUND

• African American minors were not allowed to go into certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race.
• This case was the result of four other cases that came up in separate states relating to the separation of public schools on the basis of race.

Does the separation of public education based just on race violate the Fourteenth Amendment?

DECISION OF THE COURT

• The Supreme Court held that “separate but equal” facilities are unequal and violate the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The Court also came to the conclusion that the segregation of public education based on race put a sense of inferiority that had a huge effect on the education and personal growth of African American children.

Significance of the case
* The decision helped to inspire the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.

WORKS CITED

• “Brown vs board of education of Topeka .” Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483.
• hughesDV. “Korematsu vs United States Explained : US History Review.” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Jan. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfxaSrMQtME.
• www.oyez.org www.streetlaw.org