1. Why did the plaintiff bring a Section 1981 claim rather than rely on a Title VII claim?
2. Can a Section 1981 claim encompass a charge of discrimination by one Caucasian against another?
3. Did the plaintiff prove that St. Francis College had discriminated against him because of his Arabian ancestry?

[Respondent, a U.S. citizen born in Iraq, was an associate professor of behavioral science at St. Francis College in Pennsylvania. He filed suit in federal district court against the college and its tenure committee, alleging that by denying him tenure nearly three years before, they had discriminated against him on the basis of his Arabian race in violation of 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. His Title VII claims of discrimination based on national origin, religion, and race were dismissed as untimely. The district court granted a summary judgment for the college, finding that Section 1981 does not cover claims based on Arabian ancestry. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the respondent had properly alleged racial discrimination in that although Arabs are Caucasians under current racial classifications, Congress, when it passed what is now Section 1981, did not limit its protections to those who today would be considered members of a race different from the defendant's. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.]
WHITE, J.…
Section 1981 provides:
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security for persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

Although § 1981 does not itself use the word "race," the Court has construed the section to forbid all "racial" discrimination in the making of private as well as public contracts. Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 168, 174-175 (1976). The petitioner college, although a private institution, was therefore subject to this statutory command. There is no disagreement among the parties on these propositions. The issue is whether respondent has alleged racial discrimination within the meaning of § 1981.

Petitioners contend that respondent is a Caucasian and cannot allege the kind of discrimination § 1981 forbids. Concededly, McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273 (1976), held that white persons could maintain a § 1981 suit; but that suit involved alleged discrimination against a white person in favor of a black, and petitioner submits that the section does not encompass claims of discrimination by one Caucasian against another. We are quite sure that the Court of Appeals properly rejected this position.

Petitioner's submission rests on the assumption that all those who might be deemed Caucasians today were thought to be of the same race when § 1981 became law in the 19th century; and it may be that a variety of ethnic groups, including Arabs, are now considered to be within the Caucasian race. The understanding of "race" in the 19th century, however, was different. Plainly, all those who might be deemed Caucasian today were not thought to be of the same race at the time § 1981 became law….

Encyclopedias of the 19th century … described race in terms of ethnic groups, which is a narrower concept of race than petitioners urged. Encyclopedia Americana in 1858, for example, referred in 1854 to various races such as Finns, Gypsies, Basques, and Hebrews. The 1863 version of the New American Cyclopaedia divided the Arabs into a number of subsidiary races, represented the Hebrews as of the Semitic race, and identified numerous other groups as constituting races, including Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Greeks, Finns, Italians, Spanish, Mongolians, Russians, and the like. The Ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica also referred to Arabs, Jews, and other ethnic groups such as Germans, Hungarians, and Greeks, as separate races.

These dictionary and encyclopedic sources are somewhat diverse, but it is clear that they do not support the claim that for the purposes of § 1981, Arabs, Englishmen, Germans and certain other ethnic groups are to be considered a single race. We would expect the legislative history of § 1981, which the Court held in Runyon v. McCrary had its source in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1870, to reflect this common understanding, which it surely does. The debates are replete with references to the Scandinavian races, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess, 499 (1866) (remarks of Sen. Cowan), as well as the Chinese (remarks of Sen. Davis), Latin (remarks of Rep. Kasson during debate of home rule for the District of Columbia), Spanish (remarks of Sen. Davis during debate of District of Columbia suffrage) and Anglo-Saxon races (remarks of Rep. Dawson). Jews, Mexicans (remarks of Rep. Dawson), blacks, and Mongolians (remarks of Sen. Cowan), were similarly categorized. Gypsies were referred to as a race (remarks of Sen. Cowan)….

Based on the history of § 1981, we have little trouble in concluding that Congress intended to protect from discrimination identifiable classes of persons who are subjected to intentional discrimination solely because of their ancestry or ethnic characteristics. Such discrimination is racial discrimination that Congress intended § 1981 to forbid, whether or not it would be classified as racial in terms of modern scientific theory. The Court of Appeals was thus quite right in holding that § 1981, "at a minimum," reaches discrimination against an individual "because he or she is genetically part of an ethnically and physiognomically distinctive subgrouping of homo sapiens." It is clear from our holding, however, that a distinctive physiognomy is not essential to qualify for § 1981 protection. If respondent on remand can prove that he was subjected to intentional discrimination based on the fact that he was born an Arab, rather than solely on the place or nation of his origin, or his religion, he will have made out a case under § 1981.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed.