To those complaining about the Trump executive order classifying Jews as a race/nationality: The move of characterizing Jews as a race/nationality in order to bring us w/in the ambit of federal civil rights protections is not new. SCOTUS did it in a unanimous 1987 decision
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Shaare Tefila Congregation v Cobb, 481 US 615, 617 (1987): "the question before us is not whether Jews are considered to be a separate race by today's standards, but whether, at the time §1982 was adopted, Jews constituted a group of people that Congress intended to protect."
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"It is evident from the legislative history of the section...that Jews and Arabs were among the peoples then considered to be distinct races and hence within the protection of the statute." White, joined by everyone (including liberal icons Thurgood Marshall & William Brennan) 3/
The argument is harder w/r/t Title VI (part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) than the statute in Shaare Tefila (part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866), b/c it's less clear that the 1964 Congress thought of Jews as a race/nationality than that the 1866 Congress did 4/
But there is nothing inherently wrong w/interpreting a civil rights statute to cover Jews as a race/nationality (or, if you think there is, direct your criticism at Marshall, Brennan, John Paul Stevens & co as much as at Trump) 5/
This is not a policy judgment on the EO. & it is obviously not an endorsement of Trump, who should be impeached. But I think the Shaare Tefila case was rightly decided. & a lot of the criticism of the Trump EO in the twitterverse seems to apply equally to Shaare Tefila 6/6
