White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race

“Beyond simply issuing declarations in favor of or against a particular applicant, the courts, as exponents of the applicable law, had to explain the basis on which they drew the boundaries of Whiteness.”

Courts must provide rationales for their decisions. The rationales in prerequisite cases offer unique insights into the construction of race by late 19th and early 20th century courts and are central to Haney López’s book. Alongside verdicts, they reveal how courts struggled to define the parameters of whiteness using a range of evidentiary material.

“The social construction of the White race is manifest in the Court’s repudiation of science and its installation of common knowledge as the appropriate racial meter of Whiteness.”

Early prerequisite cases relied primarily on scientific evidence and commonly held beliefs to justify racial assignments. The courts rejected science when it stopped supporting the myth that race is natural. The court’s turn toward common knowledge underscores Haney López’s core argument: that race is socially constructed.

“From Ah Yup to Thind, the courts established not so much the parameters of Whiteness as the non-Whiteness of Chinese, South Asians, and so on.”

Prerequisite courts were key in The Legal and Social Construction of Race. They struggled to define whiteness because race is a social construct, rather than something that occurs in nature. Thus, the courts directed their attention to what whiteness is not, providing incoherent and often contradictory definitions of various racial categories.