The Supreme Court rejected the state’s claim that the NOI was merely political

Evidence

For example, the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in Cooper v. Pate was one of the first significant prisoners’ rights precedents established by the highest court in the land. Thomas Cooper, a member of the NOI sued Illinois prison warden Frank Pate on the grounds that Pate’s prejudice against the NOI had resulted in the denial of Cooper’s right to the free exercise of his religion. Cooper alleged that Pate denied him the right to read religious literature, communicate with NOI ministers, and to attend religious services. The State of Illinois argued that the NOI was a political rather than a religious organization, a position that the Supreme Court rejected. The court ruled for the first time that prisoners had the right, or the legal standing, to seek relief from religious discrimination and required lower courts to hear the law suits of prisoners that were filed on this basis. The 1964 ruling made clear that prisons must treat prisoners equally, regardless of their particular religious affiliation, unless there was a compelling reason not to do so. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 401

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s guiding question about which chapter relocates the problem from ‘them’ to ‘us’—here the state’s redefinition strategy is defeated, illustrating the limits of the frightened subject’s tactics. Also relevant to Beydoun’s chapter on state surveillance.