Part I:
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees due process and equal protection. In particular, it stipulates that states shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law and deny to any person the equal protection of laws. The Supreme Court on several occasions considered the due process guarantee in the context of racial discrimination. In Hirabayashi v. United States, Hirabayashi, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry was charged with violating a regulation adopted by the military commander. According to this regulation all persons of Japanese ancestry residing in a particular area were to remain in the places of their residence between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Hirabayashi, however, failed to remain in his place of residence in the designated area and between designated hours. The main question before the Supreme Court was whether the restriction unconstitutionally discriminated between citizens of Japanese ancestry and those of other ancestries. While considering this case, the Supreme Court upheld “the rigid scrutiny approach”: although distinctions between citizens solely on the ground of their ancestry are often admitted as violation of equal protection, in times of war, the placement of citizens of one ancestry in a different category from others can be justified by needs of national defense and successful prosecution of the war. Such a doctrine was further reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States. In this case, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry was also convicted for failure to move from the military area, in accordance with the order of the Commander General prescribing to all citizens of Japanese ancestry to move from the military area. The Supreme Court held that the order of the Commander General was constitutional, and moreover, justified by war and “pressing public necessity”. Overall, one may observe that in time of war the Supreme Court, in fact, upheld the racial discrimination, although not admitting that the aforementioned cases involved such discrimination. In other words, these two cases demonstrate that in times of war the Constitution seems to matter less than in usual times.
Part II
The Fourteenth Amendment prescribes states to provide the equal protection of the laws to any person. One should draw attention that the Amendment speaks about any person not only citizens. In Plyler v. Doe the main question before the Supreme Court was whether consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Texas may deny to undocumented school-age children the free public education that it provides to children who are citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens. The Court held that such a denial is unconstitutional. Justice Blackmun wrote: “In my view, when the State provides an education to some and denies it to others, it immediately and inevitably creates class distinctions of a type fundamentally inconsistent with… purposes… of the Equal Protection Clause.” In this case, the Court adopted the immediate scrutiny standard, according to which a policy challenged must demonstrate an important governmental interest it pursues. In Plyler …