Step 1: Warmup

Duration: 5 minutes

Purpose: To allow students to synthesize their understanding of basic constitutional principles (needed for the activity they are doing today)

Implementation:

Students will be asked to do a “pop quiz competition,” where they work collectively to match the words they have learned in the course thus far (4th Amendment, Executive Order, Executive Order 9066, etc.) to the definition. They can compete with their table groups or the entire class (if the classroom setup isn’t set up in table groups)

Resources/Materials:

• Slides 1-2

• Student Facing Worksheet

Assessment: N/A

Step 2: Instructional Activity

Duration: 10 minutes

Purpose: Students will be given an incredibly short lecture on the difference between Judicial Activism/Restr aint and look into the case of Korematsu V. U.S

Implementation:

This short lecture is provided for students to be engaged with the next activity. As the prior lesson involves the introduction of Japanese incarceration and Executive Orders, students will now be introduced to a historical case involving an individual petitioning their civil rights and liberties, Korematsu V. U.S.

Various interviewees use this case as groundwork behind their motivations for civil rights in the future. This has also been mentioned to be seen as an eye-opening moment for Japanese Americans, as they learn of their histories and the attempted erasure of American faults within this case. After students engage with the case and look into both the details and conclusion, they will be grouped for a debate regarding the validity of the cases’ constitutionality.

Resources/Materials:

• Slides 3-12

• Student Facing Worksheet

• YouTube video on Korematsu v. US

• Optional materials on Korematsu case

Assessment: N/A

Step 3: Group Work

Duration: 25 minutes

Purpose: Students will be asked to analyze the constitutionality of this case and how judges could have even acknowledged incarceration’s constitutionality. The purpose of this debate is not to justify the ills and civil rights violations of Korematsu V. U.S., but rather shown to provide an example through how courts can use judicial activism/restraint to influence decision making and constitutional interpretations.

Implementation:

Feel free to split the class into 2 groups or have there be even groups throughout for this part of the activity.

Students will be split into 2 roles—the first role looks into how one might be able to argue that incarceration would be unconstitutional. Utilizing the prior information that they learned, along with the vocabulary terms that they learned today, they will be analyzing Korematsu V. U.S. to synthesize how the case was unconstitutional.

The second group will be tasked with analyzing how the Supreme Court used this case as a way of Judicial Restraint or Activism. As a team, they will be researching how the Supreme Court allowed for such a Civil Violation to occur, along with how they were able to use the confines of the Executive Order to justify their decision making process.

After this analysis, the student groups will present with one another their findings. Each team will also be tasked with taking note of the other team’s findings.

After a short all class debrief, where you can ask students to present their findings with the class, you can make a transition into presenting the actual legacy of the case, as Korematsu V. U.S was overturned a few decades later.

Resources/Materials:

• Slides 13-15

• Student Facing Worksheet

Assessment: Team Analysis of Constitutionality

Step 4: Reflection

Duration: The remainder of class

Show Minami’s clip so that students identify the structural inequities that plagued the Japanese American community in post-WW2, as textbooks rarely provided any information on this case or Japanese incarceration as a whole.

Utilize the last few minutes of class as a launching point for the next lesson as well, along with how this lesson connects to systemic injustice. Invite students to look into how the Supreme Court can easily shift the systemic practices of the nation, along with the power they hold in interpreting the practices of the nation as well.

On top of this, allow students to consider how the ill mentioning of Japanese incarceration in textbooks in spite of the emotional trauma caused through events like these can be seen as a form of cultural and educational erasure through Dale Minami’s recounts of his educational experience and subsequent encouraged assimilation into whiteness.

Sidenote: The next lesson is intended to be for another 55 minute day. Recommended practice for the block day in between these past two lessons and the next one can be on any heavy concepts which require a more in-depth lecture (such as the division of responsibility in the branches of government, the bureaucracy, the specifics of the executive branch, etc.)

*If you have time, you can also show Richard Konda’s interview clip about the importance of educating the next generation about Japanese American incarceration.

Resources/Materials:

• Student Facing Worksheet

• Dale Minami Oral History

• Richard Konda Oral History* (Slide 17)

Assessment: Exit Ticket