Overview

A call for the separation of race and state, backed by a deep dive into the surreal world of racial classification in America. Americans are understandably squeamish about official racial and ethnic classifications. Nevertheless, they are ubiquitous in American life. Applying for a job, mortgage, university admission, citizenship, government contracts, and much more involves checking a box stating whether one is Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American. While reviewing the surprising history of American racial classifications, Classified raises questions about the classifications' coherence, logic, and fairness; for example: Should Pakistani, Chinese, and Filipino Americans be in the same category despite their obvious differences in culture, appearance, religion, and more? Why does the government not allow Americans to classify themselves as bi- or multi-racial? How did the government decide that a dark-complexioned, burka-wearing Muslim Yemini should be classified as generically white, but a blond-haired, blue-eyed immigrant from Spain should be classified as Hispanic and treated as a member of a minority group? Why does the government require biomedical researchers to classify study participants by the official racial categories, when the classifications have no scientific basis? In an increasingly diverse society with high rates of intergroup marriage, the American system of racial classification is getting even more arbitrary and absurd. With rising ethno-nationalism threatening democracy around the world, it's also dangerous. Classified argues that the time has come to consider abolishing official racial classification and replace it with the separation of race and state.

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"A thorough, careful, magisterial work on a subject that's both of great practical and great theoretical importance in modern American law; highly recommended. -- ""Eugene Volokh, Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law"" We mock the racial-classifications schemes of the Jim Crow south, of Nazi Germany, and of Apartheid South Africa. But as David Bernstein ably demonstrates, our own racial classification system is just as risible, and no more scientific. -- ""Glenn Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of Law at University of Tennessee and founder of Instapundit.com"" Well-researched and clearly written, Classified explains how we got into this mess and why a rethinking of official racial and ethnic categories is long overdue. -- ""Jason L. Riley, journalist and author of Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell"""

A thorough, careful, magisterial work on a subject that's both of great practical and great theoretical importance in modern American law; highly recommended. -- Eugene Volokh, Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law We mock the racial-classifications schemes of the Jim Crow south, of Nazi Germany, and of Apartheid South Africa. But as David Bernstein ably demonstrates, our own racial classification system is just as risible, and no more scientific. -- Glenn Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of Law at University of Tennessee and founder of Instapundit.com Well-researched and clearly written, Classified explains how we got into this mess and why a rethinking of official racial and ethnic categories is long overdue. -- Jason L. Riley, journalist and author of Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell

Author Information

David E. Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he has been teaching since 1995. Known as a fearless contrarian, Professor Bernstein often challenges the conventional wisdom with prodigious research and sharp, original analysis. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow.

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