Excerpt from the Supreme Court Decision in Korematsu v. United States
Justice Black Delivered the Opinion of the Court:
It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can. . . . Exclusion of those of Japanese origin was deemed necessary because of the presence of an unascertained number of disloyal members of the group, most of whom we have no doubt were loyal to this country. It was because we could not reject the finding of the military authorities that it was impossible to bring about an immediate segregation of the disloyal from the loyal that we sustained the validity of the curfew order as applying to the whole group. In the instant case, temporary exclusion of the entire group was rested by the military on the same ground. The judgment that exclusion of the whole group was for the same reason a military imperative answers the contention that the exclusion was in the nature of group punishment based on antagonism to those of Japanese origin. That there were members of the group who retained loyalties in Japan has been confirmed by investigations made subsequent to the exclusion.
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Use the excerpt from Korematsu v. United States to answer the question.
What reason does the opinion give for failing to abolish the internment camps holding Japanese Americans during the war?
A.
The internment was legal because the law doesn’t protect against prejudice.
B.
The internment was legal because it was both military and justified.
C.
The internment was legal because those affected were not U.S. citizens.
D.
The internment was legal because no enemies of the state were among those interned.
B. The opinion states that the internment was legal because it was deemed a military imperative and justified as a result, based on the belief that there were potentially disloyal members within the group who could not be immediately segregated from the loyal members.
The answer can be found in the excerpt from Korematsu v. United States. According to the opinion, the reason provided for failing to abolish the internment camps holding Japanese Americans during the war was that the exclusion of those of Japanese origin was deemed necessary due to the presence of an unascertained number of disloyal members of the group, even though most of them were believed to be loyal to the country. The military authorities claimed that it was impossible to segregate the disloyal from the loyal, thus justifying the temporary exclusion of the entire group. Therefore, the opinion concludes that the internment was legal because it was seen as a military imperative in response to the suspicion of disloyalty within the group.
Therefore, the correct answer is B. The internment was legal because it was both military and justified.