A Blow to Discrimination

After the Civil War, the nation adopted the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, and Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave blacks the right to enjoy the laws’ protection equal to “the rights enjoyed by white citizens.” On Monday, in a remarkably unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court said that the law prohibits discrimination against other ethnic groups--even if they are not a separate race.

In one case involving a U.S. citizen born in Iraq and in another case involving a Silver Spring, Md., synagogue that was defaced by vandals, the justices said that the victims of the discrimination could sue for damages on the basis of federal civil rights laws. “Such discrimination is racial discrimination that Congress intended (the law) to forbid, whether or not it would be classified as racial in terms of modern scientific theory,” Justice Byron R. White said for the court.

No doubt. And there is also no doubt that the court has properly added a 20th-Century spin to this question, recognizing that the principle Congress had in mind was that no person should be discriminated against on the basis of group of birth, whether that group is blacks, Jews, Arabs, Latinos, Asians or what have you.

This should be self-evident, but the histories of the two cases decided Monday (Shaare Tefila Congregation vs. John Cobb and St. Francis College vs. Majid Ghaidan Al-Khazraji) show how difficult the lower courts found this question and how much of law turns on the perceptions of judges.

In the case of the synagogue, which argued that the rights of its members to own property had been denied by the desecration, the U.S. District Court for Maryland and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit without trial. In the case of the assistant professor of sociology denied promotion, the district court in Pennsylvania dismissed the suit on the ground that the law did not protect Arabs. But the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, after studying the congressional debates over adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, ruled that Congress meant to prohibit discrimination broadly. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed.

Good. That is what Congress intended, and that is what the nation wants. All discrimination on the basis of national or racial origin is racial discrimination and is anathema to the this country’s ideals.