A 1944 federal court deemed Arabs white via scholarly and civilizational contributions

Evidence

In the understanding of the common man the Arab people belong to that division of the white race speaking the Semitic languages. Both the learned and the unlearned would compare the Arabs with the Jews towards whose naturalization every American Congress since the first has been avowedly sympathetic. As every schoolboy knows, the Arabs have at various times inhabited parts of Europe, lived along the Mediterranean, been contiguous to European nations and been assimilated culturally and otherwise, by them. From the Battle of Tours to the capitulation of Granada, history records the wars waged in Europe by the Arabs. The names of Avicenna and Averroes, the sciences of algebra and medicine, the population and the architecture of Spain and of Sicily, the very words of the English language, remind us as they would have reminded the Founding Fathers of the action and interaction of Arabic and non-Arabic elements of our culture. Indeed, to earlier centuries as to the twentieth century, the Arab people stand as one of the chief channels by which the traditions of white Europe, especially the ancient Greek traditions, have been carried into the present. It follows that even by the narrow criteria which were adopted in the opinions of Mr. Justice Sutherland the Arab passes muster as a white person. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 169

Categorization

• XREF: The whiteness-through-civilizational-contribution reasoning lets the reader trace how courts used culture/learning as a racial credential — compare with how she will argue religion now works as a racial marker. — connects to: Courts admitted Arabs to whiteness via cultural contribution discourse, not religion — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 169; INS declared Arabs white by shared civilization, reversing court rulings to the contrary — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 123; Religion shaped whether courts classified Arab immigrants as White for citizenship — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 521 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Courts admitted Arabs to whiteness via cultural contribution discourse, not religion #expands (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 169
• Arabs were legally classified as white in 1943 to distinguish them from ineligible Asians. #corroborates (0.82)
• INS declared Arabs white by shared civilization, reversing court rulings to the contrary #corroborates (0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 123
• Arabs were classified white for citizenship so they could be distinguished from ineligible Asians #corroborates (0.80)
• Courts distinguished biological whiteness from culturally acceptable whiteness for citizenship #expands (0.78) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 539
• Religion shaped whether courts classified Arab immigrants as White for citizenship #qualifies (0.75) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 521
• Arab Muslims gained US citizenship rights by being classified as a Semitic white race #expands (0.75)
• Courts constructed whiteness on shifting criteria including religion. #expands (0.72) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 183