Please respond to these questions: Which branches of government were involved in the decision to intern over 110,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast during World War Two? How was this mass internment justified, both as a matter of claimed facts (i.e. why it was claimed that internment was necessary) and a matter of power/legitimacy under the Constitution? Did the Supreme Court make the right decisions in Hirabayashi and Korematsu as a matter of constitutional law? Why or why not? Please consider both majority opinions and the dissents in Korematsu and use specific examples from the court opinions from both cases. Could the mass internment be justified as a response to an emergency? If so, how should that emergency have been defined, and what specific power was justified by the emergency (and why)? What emergency powers were available under the Constitution or statutory law to deal with the claimed threat, and could such power(s) be justified as a response?
Your paper should be about 4-6 pages (roughly 1,000 – 1,600 words) long. You do not have to do any outside research, but please use specific examples from the reading assigned for the week of February 5 (and reading covered already this semester) in writing your paper (that does not mean you have to agree with everything in the reading, but it is important to be specific in defending your position in order to explain why you think your answer is justified). As noted, please be sure to include appropriate citations in your paper.
