First Korematsu and now Ashcroft v. Iqbal: The Latest Chapter in the Wartime Supreme Court's Disregard for Claims of Discrimination

This Article is concerned with shedding light on Iqbal. It will argue that this relatively obscure legal opinion may be one of the most infamous and harmful to American jurisprudence and individual rights of this generation. In particular, it will argue that (1) the Iqbal Court misapplied the traditional pleading standards that govern motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim in finding Iqbal’s particular complaint deficient and, in doing so, functionally and needlessly heightened those standards;19 and (2) the Court erred in finding unremarkable Iqbal’s allegations that the government engaged in blanket racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs because this evaluation of the merits of Iqbal’s allegations is improper at the motions to dismiss stage and the comment itself is substantively problematic, particularly in consideration of Korematsu v. United States,20 an infamous opinion from another wartime setting. As a result of these doctrinal missteps, the case, as a practical consequence, will provide the government with greater latitude to institute security programs and policies that are discriminatory, and conversely, will increase the burden on alleged victims of those programs and policies to seek redress for violations of their constitutional rights. In sum, it is the central contention of this Article that the Court in Iqbal, to put it simply, got it wrong.