Using Korematsu to Reverse Roe v. Wade is Intellectually Dishonest:
A Statement from Legal Teams Challenging World War II Japanese American Incarceration Cases
As members of the legal teams that challenged the World War II U.S. Supreme Court cases upholding the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, we are compelled to speak out about the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked opinion and the use of Korematsu v. United States to justify overruling a major civil rights case, Roe v. Wade. Below is our statement.
May 25, 2022
ENOUGH. We will NOT be used.
Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization seeks to justify overturning Roe v. Wade on grounds that “Roe was egregiously wrong (emphasis added) from the start” in the same vein as two other notorious Supreme Court decisions upholding blatant racial discrimination, Korematsu v. United States and Plessy v. Ferguson. The leaked draft references a past concurring opinion by Justice Kavanaugh in which he stated that the Korematsu v. United States decision (1944) was discredited because it was egregiously wrong when decided. However, citing to cases discredited for their blatant racially discriminatory underpinnings to justify reversing Roe v. Wade is intellectually dishonest and a mischaracterization of the essence of both cases.
In Korematsu, the Court upheld the mass removal of Japanese Americans during World War II, severely curtailing and contracting individual rights based upon disinformation and subterfuge and reinforced the use of race and nationality to wrongfully imprison 120,000 people without cause or due process. In contrast, Roe expanded individual rights, recognizing a woman’s right to make decisions over her own body. Korematsu and Plessy were “egregiously wrong” because they gave sanction to government actions based on invidious racial discrimination. The “egregious wrong” in Dobbs and Roe is a political battle over a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. The only connection between these two cases is in how Justice Alito twists the interpretation of both Korematsu and Roe for political ends to expediently meet the moment.
We write to express our moral outrage that the 75+ year struggle to right the egregious wrong and correct the record in Korematsu is now being used as a “loaded weapon” to destroy another long-standing civil and human rights precedent, as predicted by Justice Jackson in his 1944 Supreme Court dissent.
We will not stand by silently while Korematsu is once again misused. Our voices will be heard. We will not be used. Again. ENOUGH.
Signed,
Clayton Patrick, Yasui Legal Team Attorney
Dale Minami, Lead Counsel for Fred Korematsu
Donald Tamaki, Korematsu Legal Team Attorney
Eric Yamamoto, Korematsu Legal Team Attorney and Fred T. Korematsu Professor of Law and Social Justice, University of Hawaii School of Law
Karen Narasaki, Hirabayashi Legal Team Attorney
Karen N. Kai, Korematsu Legal Team Attorney
Peggy Nagae, Lead Counsel for Minoru Yasui
Rodney Kawakami, Lead Counsel for Gordon Hirabayashi