My favorite part of the ceremony was the reminder by MBA President Hayden that this is “a nation of laws, not of men.” (Quoting John Adams)

The emphasis today was on ethics, service for others, and doing what is right— even and especially when it comes with a cost. It was refreshing and inspiring.

This oath I took, to protect and defend the Massachusetts and United States Constitution, weighs heavy on me in light of today’s attempts to erode the rule of law. These words will guide me through my career.

I think that in the same way people can forfeit their rights by wrongdoing, the gov should just the same when they act to avoid accountability. The government, like any other litigant, should never be granted favor for who they are. What matters is the merit of the argument in light of the law.

Anyways, I look to these dissents and wonder who in those positions of power over us all will have the courage to stand up for what we all know to be right. Who in those positions of power will stand up and call out these arbitrary and invidious racial classifications for what they really are?

Justice Roberts' Procedural Due Process Analysis also seems helpful:

"If a citizen was constrained by two laws, or two orders having the force of law, and obedience to one would violate the other, to punish him for violation of either would deny him due process of law."

The chief restraint upon those who command the physical forces of the country, in the future as in the past, must be their responsibility to the political judgments of their contemporaries and to the moral judgments of history."

"If the people ever let command of the war power fall into irresponsible and unscrupulous hands, the courts wield no power equal to its restraint...

the principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."

Justice Jackson:

"Once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure...

"Moreover, this inference has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy."

"To infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights."

"The reasons appear to be largely an accumulation of much of the misinformation, half-truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices -- the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation."

"The [government] refers without identity to 'numerous incidents of violence' as well as to other admittedly unverified or cumulative incidents. From this, plus other events not shown to have been connected with the Japanese Americans, it is concluded that the 'situation was fraught with danger...'"

"No reliable evidence is cited to show that such individuals were generally disloyal, or had generally so conducted themselves in this area as to constitute a special menace... or had otherwise by their behavior furnished reasonable ground for their exclusion as a group."

"All residents (!) of this nation are kin in some way to a foreign land. Yet they are part of the new and distinct civilization of the U.S. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Const."

Justice Murphy:

"I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life.

Justice Roberts: Procedural Due Process
Justice Murphy: Equal Protection, Substantive Due Process
Justice Jackson: Tension between military and judicial orders.