While the Star-Advertiser’s July 2 editorial cartoon with the immediately recognizable Jim Crow credo, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” replacing the words that are actually emblazoned above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court — “Equal Justice Under Law” — may invoke cynical twitters from those following the recent misguided actions of the Court, for me, a deeper emotion from the past is invoked.
I carry a lot of luggage, as a child of immigrants in the 1930s growing up in a ghetto-like community.
As one of the 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in 1942 who was removed from their homes and incarcerated in hastily built camps in desolate, desert-like environments.
As a GI in 1945, on a three-day pass riding a bus in Arkansas not knowing whether I was supposed to sit in the front or the back of the bus.
As a member of a family unable to consummate the purchase a particular home in liberal Berkeley in 1950 because the deed contained a restrictive covenant clause denying sale to Asians and Blacks.
And in recalling the 1950s and ’60s civil rights movement, when on Feb. 1, 1960, four young African-American college students, who politely sat down and asked for service at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s in in Greensboro, N.C., were denied services.
As these experiences have taught me, “We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone” has a powerful special meaning beyond the current right of an establishment to protect itself from unruly or ill-attired customers — or, as in the case before the Supreme Court, refusal to provide services to someone with a view regarding same-sex marriage different from mine.
The placard, “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone,” represents a mental flashpoint of not knowing when you may be told that a restaurant will refuse to serve you or seat you and your date in the far corner of the dining room, near the swinging doors to the kitchen where waiters unloaded their dirty dishes.
Or while driving cross-country not knowing which of the motels would tell you they are all booked despite their partially filled parking lots.
Or searching for an Asian barber to be certain that you would not be refused a haircut.
Or, less directly, being refused admission to a university because it sponsored a U.S. Army program.
These may no longer be common practices, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis decided we could take our chances with that. Paranoia? No. Just the lifelong experiences of this 96-year-old World War II vet that makes him cautious and gives him pause.
But the Court’s decision, ignoring history, has legitimized this sign’s reach beyond unruly customers. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her scathing dissent, “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”
The Court’s abandonment of equal justice under the law reminds us that remembrance of our collective and true history is a bulwark we cannot afford to lose.
John M. Hayakawa is a retired faculty member of the University of Hawaii’s School of Public Health; his niece, attorney Jean Kim Yamasaki, assisted him in the piece.
