Law Commons^™

Wwii Japanese Internments: Can It Happen Again?, Karen Korematsu, Robert Leon Rusky, Nasrina Bargzie

The Jesse Carter Distinguished Lecture Series

In 1942 at the age of 23, Fred Korematsu intentionally defied Executive Order 9066 and refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for American citizens of Japanese ancestry. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s curfew law, he appealed his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, ruling that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity. It was not until 1983 that a team of lawyers helped overturn Korematsu’s conviction in the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

On September 23, 2010, …