Notably, two of the court’s Democratic appointees, Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, chose not to enter the fray over Korematsu. “History will not look kindly on the court’s decision today - nor should it,” she declared. Reading a summary of her views at length from the bench, Sotomayor called the majority’s ruling “devastating.” She called the court’s formal overruling of Korematsu a “silver lining” in Tuesday’s opinion but lamented that her fellow justices had swapped “one gravely wrong decision” for another. That didn’t satisfy Sotomayor, who suggested that her colleagues were trying to whitewash their opinion in favor of the travel ban by wiping a similarly racist ruling from the books.

affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and - to be clear - ‘has no place in law under the Constitution,’” Roberts wrote. The majority decision went on to take the step of formally repudiating the Korematsu ruling. “But it is wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission.” citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority,” Roberts wrote. “Whatever rhetorical advantage the dissent may see in doing so, Korematsu has nothing to do with this case. Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision expressed an air of offense at the dissenters’ suggestion that Trump’s travel ban was akin to the internment of U.S.

Korematsu vs united states