Korematsu v. United States, Part 2: The Four Test Cases

As Japanese Americans are forced from the West Coast and incarcerated in camps, few major institutions are willing to stand in the government’s way. Judge Stephen Sfekas follows four people whose cases challenge different parts of the wartime policy: attorney Minoru Yasui, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu and California civil servant Mitsuye Endo. Their paths to court are sharply different, but each raises the same constitutional question: How far can the government restrict the rights of American citizens in the name of military necessity? Part 2 ends with the Supreme Court’s 1943 decisions in Hirabayashi and Yasui, which upheld the curfew imposed on people of Japanese ancestry while leaving the broader questions of forced exclusion and incarceration unresolved.