On August 29, the Japanese Supreme Court rendered the final verdict in Saburo Ienaga’s 32-year court battle over textbook screening, ruling that Japan’s Education Ministry acted illegally when it removed references to World War II Japanese biological warfare experiments from a proposed history textbook the now-retired professor was preparing.
The 3–2 decision found that the education minister “illegally stepped beyond the boundary of appropriate screening.” It also accused the ministry of “erroneous
judgment” when it removed the sections from the work, arguing that the activities discussed in the passages had been accepted as historical fact within the academic community. The government was ordered to pay Ienaga ¥400,000 {$3,500) in damages.
However, the court unanimously upheld the Education Ministry’s right to screen all textbooks before they are used and to remove anything found objectionable. This decision was tempered by an order to the ministry to use moderation in censoring textbooks.
The court also dismissed or rejected specific claims by Ienaga that seven other portions of his book had been illegally censored, including one that discussed the rape of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
The ruling was seen as a step forward for historians and educators seeking to promote discussion of Japan’s military activities in the 1930s and 1940s, and closed case which has made a public issue of how Japan’s past should be understood and taught to younger generations.
Report by Kyle Graham, from news reports and a dispatch from Richard F. Zippl, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan. For an analysis of the case by Japanese historian Masao Nishikawa, see "Japanese History in the Dock" on page 5.
