In October 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Korematsu v. United States. Fred Korematsu, a U.S. citizen, challenged the constitutionality of his federal criminal conviction for violating a U.S. Army order excluding him—because he was of Japanese ethnicity—from the west coast of the U.S. during World War II. Two months after the oral arguments, the Supreme Court affirmed Korematsu’s conviction. The Korematsu decision is one of the most infamous in U.S. Supreme Court history.

On October 9, 2024, Professor John Q. Barrett spoke at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., in a program that he helped to plan, “Korematsu at 80: Reenactment and Re-litigation.” The program featured reenactment of 1944 Korematsu oral arguments and then litigation of part of a mock civil case as it would be litigated by a “Fred Korematsu” today.

The program now is in C-SPAN’s broadcast rotation. These are the program segments:

• Welcoming remarks by Kristan McMahon, President of the Robert H. Jackson Center

• Professor Barrett’s introductory lecture, “The Japanese-American Cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, 1942-1944”

• Reenactment of the October 1944 Korematsu oral arguments:
  • Robert Long (Covington & Burling), representing Fred Korematsu
  • Roy Englert, Jr. (Kramer Levin), representing the United States
  • “Justices”:
    • U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman (D.D.C.)
    • Judge Kelly Higashi (D.C. Superior Court)
    • Professor Cliff Sloan (Georgetown University Law Center)

• “Re-litigation” of a contemporary civil case brought by “Fred Korematsu”:
  • Introduction by Associate Dean Alan B. Morrison (George Washington University Law School)
  • Kyle Singhal (Hopwood & Singhal), representing the United States
  • Minsuk Han (Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel, & Frederick), representing Korematsu
  • “Judge”: Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew (George Washington University Law School)

Professor Barrett is a biographer of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who was one of the three dissenters in Korematsu.

To download a 2005 Professor Barrett article about Justice Jackson’s Korematsu dissenting opinion, click here.