Michael Hiltzik: The talk of raising a statue to Earl Warren would force a reckoning with his racist record

The emerging debate over which Californian should replace the now-disdained Father Junípero Serra as one of the only two representatives of the state enshrined in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall has thrown up some intriguing names: Jackie Robinson, Cesar Chavez, Sally Ride and John Steinbeck among them.

Also Earl Warren, a former governor of California who is regarded as a liberal icon for his record as chief justice of the U.S., especially for writing the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement.

Warren's legion of admirers might be well advised to hope the discussion doesn't go any further.

That's because it's sure to force a public reckoning with Warren's role in one of the darkest episodes in American history: the dehumanizing relocation and incarceration of more than 110,000 residents of Japanese extraction in California and other Western states during World War II. In any event,