Thread by @elmunc

This nutshell of _Korematsu_in @JeannieSGersen's piece on Dred Scott is lawprof-standard--but it's also mistaken and perpetuates misunderstanding of the case and the history. First, _Korematsu_ did *not* permit the detention of Japanese Americans, even tho everyone thinks it did.

https://twitter.com/JeannieSGersen/status/1402412216025034754

Korematsu "permitted" the *removal* of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It said nothing about detention (or "internment" (on which more in a moment)). The Supreme Court did not uphold anyone's detention; in fact, it unanimously *condemned* detention the same day in _Endo_.

(Of course, there are law-review-worthy debates about the Court's duplicity in breaking detention apart from removal in Korematsu and Endo. It's fair to assail the Court for maneuvering to avoid ruling on detention in _K_. But it's wrong to say the Ct permitted detention in _K_.)

And it's also wrong to refer to the detention of Japanese Americans as "internment," even though that's the common term. "Internment" was a *lawful* process brought to bear on a subset of Japanese noncitizens--a couple thousand--after Pearl Harbor.

The process brought to bear on the roughly 120K people of Japanese ancestry (like Fred Korematsu) had nothing to do with that "internment." It was an unprecedented, made-up-on-the-fly imprisonment of people of Japanese ancestry with no claim to the lawful pedigree of internment.

_Korematsu_ is an immensely important case, both historically and doctrinally. We lawprofs should describe it with care. @korematsu @KorematsuCtr @DenshoProject @aaaj_alc @aaldef