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BY: This could be the last one. So, where are we with the Supreme Court of the United States and its rulings on curfew, expulsion and incarceration?

TI: Yeah, so that's a good question. So I think you're in particular talking about maybe the Korematsu decision that was 6-3 in favor of the government, and has been known as a decision that, from the moment it was made, I think there was a lot of critique of it. More recently, around the Muslim travel ban.

BY: Because if I've got this right, after Korematsu, Henry, who says at the end of Born in Seattle, that he's disappointed because of just that, he doesn't feel like we've come far enough because it still stands, right?

TI: Yeah. I mean, when people -- and I will differ with people -- they say, well, it was unconstitutional, the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. "Well, the Supreme Court ruled that it was." And there was the coram nobis cases in the '80s, which vacated the convictions of Fred Korematsu and Hirabayashi and Min Yasui, but they didn't overturn the original ruling.

BY: That's where we get to the Muslim ban.

TI: Yeah, the Muslim ban. What's interesting is Chief Justice Roberts repudiated -- and I say repudiated, he didn't overturn it -- but he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but, "In kind of the annals of history and others, it's clear that this was wrong and justice. And what we're doing here today is not the same thing," is what he essentially said. So he, again, kind of repudiated, but it wasn't a formal overturning of that. The hope was that Justice Kennedy would have ruled the other way and that he would write the majority opinion of the Muslim travel ban, say that it was unconstitutional, and in that, formally overturn Korematsu. That was the hope that we had, and we had a sense that there was a possibility that he might do that, and so there was some work to make that happen. Obviously, it didn't. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts repudiated, I think, misstated his, what Korematsu meant. Because he said whereas Korematsu, he said, was about racial discrimination, of course we're not about racial discrimination. Actually, Korematsu was ruled based on military necessity. Back then they said, no, it's not about race, it was all about military necessity. And what we've come to know, and why it's viewed as such a horrible decision was that military necessity argument was just this really thin veil to hide the racism behind it. And so my stance is that the Muslim travel ban is the same thing. They're talking about national security reasons, but the way it's been written and done, it's really this, again, a thin veil to show our discrimination against Muslims. So I think it's really the same as Korematsu, and I think that's where a lot of legal scholars...

BY: Justice Sotomayor spoke strongly to that.

TI: Yes, she did.

BY: Now what I wonder, Tom, but has the Muslim ban run its course in our courts? That's what I'm still confused about.

TI: I think so.

BY: But that case? Because I've looked at all the Bob Ferguson lawsuits, I can't keep track of it.

TI: I think they could bring up other instances, but that was a pretty strong ruling there that was pretty disappointing.

BY: I'm just fascinated by that because of what he said, "History condemns this." But yet, the Court in its action did not officially, so it remains.

TI: Right. And his argument was, again, for military necessity reasons, that's why we're doing it.

BY: But didn't the commission basically say, nix the military necessity argument?

TI: Exactly.

BY: Which I believe was given to us by our Aberdeen native Karl Bendetsen, correct?

TI: That's right.

BY: Really interesting character, but that's for another time. Tom, that's it for now.

TI: Okay.

BY: I thank you so much.

TI: Oh, this was good, this was fun.

BY: I'm glad you survived all three hours and seventeen minutes of it. I could keep going myself, I'm really jazzed, but I think that's it for now. So I just will have a ton of followups that we can do by email and phone.

TI: Perfect.

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