Content area
Full text
The 125th anniversary of Yick Wo v. Hopkins is an important opportunity to recognize the pervasive role of law in oppressive treatment of Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is also a good opportunity for the Supreme Court to reflect on four important lessons gleaned from Yick Wo. First, the Court should never lend justification to the evil of class discrimination, even if it has to decline to rule in a case. Second, where there is persistent discrimination against a minority group, the Court must be similarly persistent in fighting it. Third, the Court needs to take legislative motivation more seriously in cases of persistent class discrimination. Finally, the Court cannot give sanction to any dominant group's view that the country's economic and social wealth belongs to them.
INTRODUCTION
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, a staple of every Constitutional Law course, was 125 years old this past year.1 In a perhaps fitting commemorative, in 2010 the City of San Francisco, where Yick Wo was arrested and imprisoned, appointed its first Chinese American mayor, Ed Lee.2 This event was greeted by the Asian Law Caucus with the statement, "This is an historic moment for our great City. It signals a new era in San Francisco government and also for the city's residents, over thirty percent of whom are Asian American."3 In a classic story of backroom politics, Lee was chosen by the San Francisco board of supervisors to complete the mayoral term of new California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.4 The selection of a Chinese American mayor for San Francisco is particularly poignant in light of the California legislature's 2009 resolution designating December 17th, the repeal date of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, as a day to remember Yick Wo and recognize the contribution of Chinese and other immigrants to the state of California.5
Yick Wo has continued to spark academic debate, most recently incited by Gabriel Chin, who questions whether Yick Wo is really a property and treaty case rather than a race case;6 but the lessons of Yick Wo for constitutional adjudication reverberate beyond this debate. There are at least four fairly simple lessons the Justices can re-learn from the history behind Yick Wo. Constitutional scholars have been debating them for decades...