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  • Wartime Prejudice Against Persons of Italian Descent: Does the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 Violate Equal Protection?

    Most people know that the United States interned persons of Japanese descent during World War II. Few people know, however, that the government interned persons of German and Italian descent as well. In fact, the internment was part of a larger national security program, in which the government classified non-citizens of all three ethnicities as "enemy aliens" and subjected then to numerous restrictions, including arrest, internment, expulsion from certain areas, curfews, identification cards, loss of employment, and restrictions on travel and property. Four decades after the war, Congress decided to compensate persons of Japanese descent who had been "deprived of liberty or property" by these restrictions. Congress has not, however, redressed the harm done to persons of German or Italian descent. This Note explores why Congress decided to distinguish between victims of Japanese and Italian descent, why the D.C. Circuit held that the distinction does not violate equal protection, and the potential impact of new historical evidence on both conclusions.

  • The Evolution of Race in the Law: The Supreme Court Moves from Approving Internment of Japanese Americans to Disapproving Affirmative Ation for African Americans

    As the Court suggests, the Korematsu precedent is crucial to the Adarand decision. In Adarand, the Court analyzes Korematsu in depth, acknowledging that its own judgment had been mistaken in the internment cases, instead of simply citing the decisions as it formally had done until the very recent past. The Court nevertheless fails to appreciate the differences between Korematsu and Adarand, and in particular the consequences of using "strict scrutiny" for all racial classifications. This essay explores the complex relation-ship between Korematsu and Adarand, and offers a critique of the reasoning used in both cases. The essay argues that Adarand may permit invidious racial classifications to survive constitutional challenge and that its analysis of the standing issues associated with collateral litigation over affirmative action are inconsistent with its resolution of substantive issues of racial discrimination.