Because they are a religious community and not a racial one, Muslims cannot be counted in the US Census nor do affirmative action policies apply to them. Similarly, because Arabs and most other Middle Eastern immigrant populations are defined as “white” by the US Census, they do not count as a minority population in any official sense. Like Muslims, Arabs cannot benefit from affirmative action programs, and their status as white is fragile; it fades once they are publicly identified as Arab or Muslim, attributions that expose them to unwelcome governmental attention and a wide range of negative stereotypes.

XREF: Connects to broader scholarship on racial formation, Arab American studies, and how legal classification confers or denies minority protections in the US.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 664