Tag Archives: Civil Rights

Supreme Court overturns Korematsu in response to charge of echos in Travel Ban decision

Wed, June 27, 2018 No Comments by Gregory Blanc

The Topaz War Relocation Center, where Fred Korematsu was sent after his arrest (National Archives)

 
In his majority opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, Chief Justice John Roberts overturned the ruling in Korematsu v. United States (1944) that had stood for nearly three quarters of a century in response to a dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that drew parallels between the opinion in Trump and that in Korematsu. 
 
Roberts’s opinion in Trump upheld an Executive Order by President Donald Trump to exclude people from several predominantly Muslim countries from traveling to the United States on national security grounds.  Koremastu upheld the internement of Japanese Americans during World War II ruling that it was based on “proper security measures” in time of war. 
 
Justice Roberts denied any relation between Trump and Korematsu, but took the opportunity of its mention to overturn Korematsu, quoting a dissent by Justice Robert Jackson.  “Koremastu 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.'”
 
In her dissent in Trump, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “By blindly accepting the Government’s misguided invitation to sanction a discrimi­natory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group, all in the name of a superficial claim of national security, the Court redeploys the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu and merely replaces one ‘gravely wrong’ decision with another.”
 

Learn more about Korematsu v. United States in our film Korematsu and Civil Liberties.

 
 
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Remembering Linda Brown, the 3rd grader whose case overturned “separate but equal”

Tue, March 27, 2018 No Comments by Gregory Blanc

Linda Brown in 1964 (Library of Congress)

Brown v. Board of Education is the case that desegregated schools in America and overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” that enabled segregation in the United States.  The third grader at the center of the case, Linda Brown, died this week at the age of 76.

Linda just wanted a closer school and a safer commute, one that didn’t involve crossing a dangerous street and railroad tracks just to get to her bus.  But the school five minutes from her home was all white and Linda was African American.  And in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s, like in much of the country, schools were segregated.  Linda’s parents objected and their case became a class action lawsuit that eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court.  

In a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court ruled in favor of Brown, writing that segregation and the doctrine of “separate but equal” were inherently unequal and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Learn more about the fight to end segregation in schools in our film An Independent Judiciary.

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Commemorate Fred Korematsu Day, Learn About this Civil Rights Hero

Thu, January 30, 2014 No Comments by Maria Matasar-Padilla

January 30th is Fred Korematsu Day. Mr. Korematsu was a national civil rights hero. He was one of only a handful of Asian Americans who challenged the government’s efforts to incarcerate Japanese Americans from the West Coast in internment camps during World War II. At the age of 23, Mr. Korematsu was arrested and eventually convicted for defying the government’s order to leave California. Undeterred, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, in a decision that remains a stain on the Court’s legacy, the Court ruled against him. As Associate Justice Stephen Breyer declares in our film,  Korematsu and Civil Liberties, it is “universally acknowledge that that was an error.” Watch our film and learn more about Mr. Korematsu and his fight for justice.

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