A German-American plaintiff lost his challenge because he received due process

Evidence

Of course, H.R. 442 had its fair share of critics who thought the compensation paid to the survivors of internment was unfair. A little over six months later a lawsuit was filed challenging the act’s constitutionality. On March 9, 1989, a white plaintiff of German ancestry sued the government alleging the unconstitutionality of the act because it did not award payments to white people. The challenge was heard on appeal by the US Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit. … In its decision, the court began by acknowledging the racism that informed the mass incarceration of Japanese American citizens: “Fifty years ago, President Roosevelt authorized his Secretary of War to send Japanese Americans to internment camps solely because of their race.” The plaintiff, on the other hand, had been incarcerated after his father, who was suspected of espionage, had an individual hearing and was found guilty after all the evidence was presented. It is unclear whether the plaintiff was taken into custody with his father out of a wish to keep the family together. But the important distinction is that his father received an individual hearing before he was incarcerated, which meant his circumstances were not comparable to those of Japanese Americans who were summarily incarcerated without any due process. The plaintiff lost because the court found he suffered no discrimination when he was excluded from receiving any payments. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 239

Categorization

• XREF: This is the constitutional template Brown will likely need to survive strict scrutiny in the reparations remedy — connects directly to the reader’s brief-defense framing.