"Citizenship has its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and in time of war the burden is always heavier. Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger."
This case explores the legal concept of equal protection.
After Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941, the military feared a Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland. The U.S. government was worried that Americans of Japanese descent might aid the enemy. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order forcing many people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to leave their homes and businesses and live in internment camps for the duration of the war. Fred Korematsu, an American citizen of Japanese descent, was arrested and convicted of violating the executive order. Korematsu did not believe his arrest was fair. He challenged his conviction in the courts saying that Congress, the president, and the military authorities did not have the power to issue the relocation orders, and that he was being discriminated against based on his race. The government argued that the evacuation was necessary to protect national security. The federal Appeals Court agreed with the government. Korematsu appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court agreed with government and stated that the need to protect the country was a greater priority than the individual rights of the people of Japanese descent forced into internment camps.
