Reference no: EM133340718

Review the Case Study "High Stakes" and answer the five questions in detail within "Where do you Stand?" 1-5.

Book.

Lewis, C. W., Gilman, S. C. (12). The Ethics Challenge in Public Service: A Problem-Solving Guide, 3rd Edition.

Case: High Stakes

During World War II, almost 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry-most of them U.S. citizens-were removed from their homes to federal internment camps, where they lived under armed guard. There were no formal charges and no trials.

In "Confession of Error: The Solicitor General's Mistakes During the Japanese-American Internment Cases," Neal Katyal (2011), acting solicitor general of the United States from 2010 to 2011, wrote:

It has been my privilege to have served as Acting Solicitor General for the past year [2010-2011] and to have served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General before that. The Solicitor General is responsible for overseeing appellate litigation on behalf of the United States, and with representing the United States in the Supreme Court. There are several terrific accounts of the roles that Solicitors General have played throughout history in advancing civil rights. But it is also important to remember the mistakes. One episode of particular relevance to AAPI [Asian American/Pacific Islanders] Heritage Month is the Solicitor General's defense of the forced relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States uprooted more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them American citizens, and confined them in internment camps. The Solicitor General was largely responsible for the defense of those policies.

By the time the cases of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu reached the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General had learned of a key intelligence report that undermined the rationale behind the internment. The Ringle Report, from the Office of Naval Intelligence, found that only a small percentage of Japanese Americans posed a potential security threat, and that the most dangerous were already known or in custody. But the Solicitor General did not inform the Court of the report, despite warnings from Department of Justice attorneys that failing to alert the Court "might approximate the suppression of evidence." Instead, he argued that it was impossible to segregate loyal Japanese Americans from disloyal ones. Nor did he inform the Court that a key set of allegations used to justify the internment, that Japanese Americans were using radio transmitters to communicate with enemy submarines off the West Coast, had been discredited by the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and FCC [Federal Communications Commission]. And to make matters worse, he relied on gross generalizations about Japanese Americans, such as that they were disloyal and motivated by "racial solidarity."

The Supreme Court upheld Hirabayashi's and Korematsu's convictions. And it took nearly a half century for courts to overturn these decisions. One court decision in the 1980s that did so highlighted the role played by the Solicitor General, emphasizing that the Supreme Court gave "special credence" to the Solicitor General's representations. The court thought it unlikely that the Supreme Court would have ruled the same way had the Solicitor General exhibited complete candor. Yet those decisions still stand today as a reminder of the mistakes of that era.

Today, our Office takes this history as an important reminder that the "special credence" the Solicitor General enjoys before the Supreme Court requires great responsibility and a duty of absolute candor in our representations to the Court. Only then can we fulfill our responsibility to defend the United States and its Constitution, and to protect the rights of all Americans.

The Navy's 1941 Ringle Report on Japanese Internment found that "in short, the entire 'Japanese Problem' has been magnified out of its true proportion, largely because of the physical characteristics of the people; that it is no more serious than the problems of the German, Italian, and Communistic portions of the United States population, and, finally that it should be handled on the basis of the individual, regardless of citizenship, and not on a racial basis."

The internment act was canceled in January 1945, and the camps were closed by early fall More than four decades later, with the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Congress apologized. It acknowledged "a grave injustice" that was "motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

Questions - Where Do You Stand?

1. The solicitor general says it is "important to remember the mistakes." Do you agree or disagree, and why?

2. This "Confession of Error" was posted on the Department of Justice's blog. The posting implies that the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court are internal stakeholders that were deeply affected by the withholding of information. How were they affected? Is this important compared to what they did?

3. Think about racial or ethnic profiling at traffic stops or security checkpoints How does racial or ethnic bias in public policy or service delivery affect professional administrators, public organizations, citizens, permanent residents, and others?

4. American public opinion has become more tolerant of racial or ethnic profiling over the past decade where national security and illegal immigration are concerned. Where do you stand? Do you approve or disapprove of profiling? Make your argument in deontological and teleological terms, and draw on core public service values Figure 1.2.

5. How should professional public administrators handle an order to implement policies such as profiling or internment that disregard the individual's civil rights? What should they think about? (See Chapters Two and Four.)