Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American internment during World War II are historically significant because they:

Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American internment during World War II are historically significant because they:

• A. Authorized internment of many Japanese Americans, a violation of civil liberties, later acknowledged as unjust
• B. Led to desegregation of public schools after the war
• C. Created the Department of Homeland Security
• D. Expanded civil liberties for minority groups

Answer: (B)

Main idea: wartime actions can threaten individual rights, and history remembers how a nation responds to that risk. Executive Order 9066 led to the forced removal and internment of thousands of Japanese Americans, many of them citizens, into camps during World War II. This choice starkly illustrates how national security concerns can override civil liberties like due process and equal protection, and today it is widely understood as an unjust violation. The lasting importance lies in recognizing that rights were violated, the government later acknowledged the wrong, and reparations were provided through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. By contrast, desegregation of public schools occurred through later civil rights movements and court decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, not as a consequence of internment. And the Department of Homeland Security was created decades later, not as a result of this policy.

Main idea: wartime actions can threaten individual rights, and history remembers how a nation responds to that risk. Executive Order 9066 led to the forced removal and internment of thousands of Japanese Americans, many of them citizens, into camps during World War II. This choice starkly illustrates how national security concerns can override civil liberties like due process and equal protection, and today it is widely understood as an unjust violation. The lasting importance lies in recognizing that rights were violated, the government later acknowledged the wrong, and reparations were provided through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. By contrast, desegregation of public schools occurred through later civil rights movements and court decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, not as a consequence of internment. And the Department of Homeland Security was created decades later, not as a result of this policy.