A United States federal judge ruled that Jews are protected by a law banning racial discrimination when seeking employment.
Magistrate Mark Hornsby said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not define what constitutes “race” but that Jews were entitled to protection under it.
The Associated Press reported that in a court filing last Friday, the Louisiana judge said that although there is debate as to whether or not Jews constitute a race, since many people view it as such, the law applies to Jews.
The opinion concerned a case in which a man sued a private Christian college for allegedly not hiring him as a football coach because of his Jewish background. The plaintiff, Joshua Bonadona, is an alumnus of Louisiana College who grew up Jewish but converted to Christianity during his studies there.
Bonadona’s lawyer, James Bullman, said he was not aware of any other cases in which a court said that Jews are protected against racial employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. According to AP, Bullman called the recommendation “precedent-setting.”
Bonadona claims that a coach who interviewed him for a position said the president of the college, Rick Brewer, would not hire him due to what Brewer referred to as his “Jewish blood.”
Hornsby recommended allowing Bonadona to pursue the civil case alleging racial discrimination against the school. He said that anti-Semitism in the United States has historically been based less on an individual’s religious beliefs and more on the fact that he or she had Jewish roots.
“Jewish citizens have been excluded from certain clubs or neighborhoods, and they have been denied jobs and other opportunities based on the fact that they were Jewish, with no particular concern as to a given individual’s religious leanings,” the judge wrote.
This issue is obviously complicated because Jews occupy an especially unique and precarious position in American society that cannot be reduced to “white” or “non-white.” Anti-Semitism is systemic to capitalism in a very different way than the racism faced by the black community and the “POC versus white” binary fails to describe the Jewish experience in America.
The illusion of Jewish “whiteness” can only exist when one contextualizes Jewish identity in the United States according to the paradigm of another people’s experiences and challenges (Jews can be considered “white” within the context of the injustices others experience due to being “not white” but this has little to do with our own understanding of our people’s unique identity, history, challenges and collective experience). And the fact that Jews have had to change our names, shrink our noses, straighten our hair and betray our own culture and values in order to achieve a privilege defined by what others are denied is telling enough. We should also be cautious not to define our people’s situation in America according to a temporary – and potentially fleeting – reality. In many Diasporas over the centuries, periods where Jews enjoyed the illusions of privilege and belonging were often followed up by harsh – and in some cases catastrophic – wake-up calls.
That being said, our own unique experiences, hardships and traumas should not desensitize us to the pain or struggles of others. We should obviously demonstrate solidarity with and seek justice for those facing very real injustices today. But we should do so not as representatives of white America but as another minority group with different challenges and struggles unique to our own experience.
