QSS-GOVT post-doctoral fellow publishes article on the role of religion in ethnoracial assignment

Amanda Sahar d'Urso, a post-doctoral fellow in the Program in Quantitative Social Science (QSS) and the Government Department at Dartmouth College, is the author of a recently publishes article, "A Boundary of White Inclusion: The Role of Religion in Ethnoracial Assignment," in Perspectives on Politics.  Dr. Sahar d'Urso has been appointed at Dartmouth since July 2022 and recently received her doctorate in political science from Northwestern University. 

The abstract of the article is as follows:

How do White Americans operationalize Whiteness? This article argues that religion, in conjunction with country of origin, alters how self-identified White Americans assign ethnoracial labels to other groups. To test the role of religion in White assignment, this article uses the case of Muslims and of Americans from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although MENA individuals are legally classified as White in the United States, they are subjected to racialization and often conflated with Muslims. Using an historical analysis of racial prerequisite court cases and a survey experiment, I find that country of origin and religion play separate, additive roles in racial assignment decisions, both historically and today. These findings also extend to perceived skin tone. This is important because many of the benefits that come from being White depend on whether others perceive an individual as White. Understanding the constitutive parts of Whiteness compels research to be specific when discussing White people and why some "White" people are excluded.