Group-specific reparations can survive equal-protection challenges when harm is documented with hearings.

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 plaintiff lost because the court found he suffered no discrimination when he was excluded from receiving any payments. … The court ruled that Congress “had clear and sufficient reason to compensate interns of Japanese but not German descent; and the compensation is substantially related (as well as narrowly tailored) to Congress’s compelling interest in redressing a shameful example of national discrimination.” — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 239

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reparations-as-accounting frame: the court’s deferential scrutiny of documented, narrowly tailored harm is exactly the legal architecture Brown wants to extend to Black Americans.
• DEFINE: Establishes the legal standard — documented congressional hearings plus narrowly tailored compensation — that any reparations model must meet.