Justice Antonin Scalia told students in Hawaii on Monday that the Supreme Court’s Korematsu decision upholding the internment of Japanese Americans was wrong, but it could happen again in war time.
Speaking at the University of Hawaii law school, Scalia responded to a question about the 1944 ruling, which upheld an executive order that required the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Associated Press reports.
“Well, of course, Korematsu was wrong,” Scalia said. “And I think we have repudiated it in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.”
At the time, Scalia said, there was “panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That’s what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification but it is the reality.”
