Lesson Plan: Legacy of the Korematsu Decision
Grades 8-12
Just months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them American citizens, rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps. Some resisted, like 23-year-old Fred Korematsu, who hid from the authorities and underwent surgery to change his appearance. Korematsu was eventually arrested and convicted of violating the president’s order. He appealed, but the Supreme Court ruled that the order was a valid wartime response to a national security threat. Decades later, the government admitted wrongdoing, issuing official apologies and reparations to those who had been imprisoned. But the Supreme Court’s decision had a lasting impact.
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