Indiana Law Journal Volume 73 Issue 1 Article 3 Winter 1997 Race, Religion, and Cultural Identity: Reconciling the Jurisprudence of Race and Religion Tseming Yang United States Department of Justice Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Yang, Tseming (1997) "Race, Religion, and Cultural Identity: Reconciling the Jurisprudence of Race and Religion," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 73 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol73/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized editor of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Race, Religion, and Cultural Identity: Reconciling the Jurisprudence of Race and Religion t TSEMING YANG* INTRODUCTION .................................................. 120 I. SIMILARITY OF RACE AND RELIGION: A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH ....... 124 A. Religious Discriminationand Race Discrimination ............... 124 B. Race and Religion as Aspects of CulturalIdentity ................ 127 1. The Value of Cultural Identity and Group Membership ......... 127 2. Religion and Race as Similar Cultural Groupings .............. 129 C. Religion Clausesand EqualProtection Clauses as Protectionfor Individual CulturalIdentity ...................... 135 D. Race and Religion Under the Constitution ...................... 140 1. The Equality Principle ..................................... 140 2. Equal Protection .......................................... 146 3. Liberty and Due Process ................................... 148 II. RECONCILING THE JURISPRUDENCE OF RACE AND RELIGION: TOWARD AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO CULTURAL IDENTITY ........ 151 A. Religion as the Primary Model ................................ 151 B. Pervasive Regulation of Race and Religion: Nonentanglement and Segregation ............................. 154 C. Formal vs. Substantive Equality: Mandatory Religious Accommodations, "'Cultural"Accommodations, and Washington v. Davis ..................................... 156 D. Inclusion and Exclusion: Affirmative Action and Legislative Accommodation ............................................ 162 1. Criticisms of Affirmative Action: Of Stigmatic Injuries, "Incidental Burdens" on "Innocent Victims," and Free Riders ... 164 2. Permissible Forms of Affirmative Action: Diversity as a Means to Integration .......................... 173 3. Religious Inclusion and Exclusion: Legislative Accommodations and Endorsement Jurisprudence ............................. 180 CONCLUSION .................................................... 184 t © 1997 by Tseming Yang. * Attorney, United States Department of Justice; J.D., 1992, University of California at Berkeley; A.B., 1988, Harvard College. The views expressed in this Article are those of the author alone and do not represent the views of the Department of Justice. I thank Maggie Chon, Neil Gotanda, Angela Harris, Kenneth Karst, Howard Shelanski, Mike Wall, and Frank Wu for the valuable insights they have provided, as well as the participants of the 1996 Asian Pacific American Law Professors Conference, where an earlier version of this Article was presented. This work would not have been possible without the continual support of my wife Tinling Choong. INDIANA LA W JOURNAL [Vol. 73:119 INTRODUCTION Although race and religion generally have been treated in very distinct lines of constitutional jurisprudence, government actions with respect to them, in particular toward racial and religious outsiders,' raise similar concerns. Recently, these parallels have been acknowledged by the Supreme Court in Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet2 and have led to suggestions by some commentators, such as Neil Gotanda, on how they could be treated constitutionally alike.3 The similarities of race4 and religion' can be traced 1. In this Article I use the terms "minority" and "outsider group" interchangeably. 2. 512 U.S. 687, 728 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring) ("[G]overnment may not segregate people on account of their race, [as] ... it may not segregate on the basis of religion"); see Colloquium on Law, Religion, and Culture, 26 CUMB. L. REV. 1 (1995- 1996) (devoting entire issue to the religion analogue of racial segregation raised in Kiryas Joel); Abner S. Greene, Kiryas Joel and Two Mistakes About Equality, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 1, 57-83 (1996) (arguing that in Kiryas Joel, the Supreme Court took an approach to religious accommodation more in line with its stance on affirmative action); see also Jesse H. Choper, Religion and Race Under the Constitution: Similaritiesand Differences, 79 CORNELL L. REV. 491 (1994). 3. See Neil Gotanda, A Critique of "Our ConstitutionIs Color-Blind", 44 STAN. L. REV. 1, 64-68 (1991) (suggesting treatment of racial affirmative action along religious accommodation lines); David E. Steinberg, Religious Exemption as Affirmative Action, 40 EMORY L.J. 77 (1991) (suggesting treatment of religious accommodation along racial affirmative action lines). 4. In this Article I use the terms "race" and "skin color" to designate a cultural or ethnic group. See, e.g., Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 197 (1922) (illustrating the use of terms denoting skin color to designate cultural identity). In its strictly scientific conception, race (and skin color) has had little more importance than other particular physical characteristics, such as hair color or height. Thus it is not as a term designating certain primary physiological phenotypes of humans but rather as a cultural and social concept, and in its societal and legal consequences, that "race" has been important in American society. In that respect, it has acquired a meaning entirely independent of its scientific moorings. See Gotanda, supra note 3, at 28-34 & n. 116 (discussing Justice White's description of race in Saint Francis College v. Al Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987)). For a discussion of the social conceptions of race that have been significant in American history, see id. at 36-40, 56-59. See also infra text accompanying notes 61-65. 5. Here, I consider the functional aspects of religion as a source of group identity and social cohesion. There are of course important cognitive (explanations of mysterious events), and emotional human need for order and assurance against forces beyond human control-aspects of religion. See generally J. MILTON YINGER, RELIGION, SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 52-56 (1957). While I do not discuss these aspects separately, they are part and parcel of the cultural value framework that religion contributes to. See infra note 50 and accompanying discussion. To the extent that religious beliefs are not closely related to a person's sense of identity, belonging, or cultural framework, such beliefs are much more like ordinary opinions or other beliefs that are also protected under the Free Speech Clause. See infra notes 98-99 and accompanying text. In that sense, religious beliefs that are held less deeply or are less central to an individual carry less of the special importance that is oftentimes associated with religion. Of course, my intention in this Article is not to engage in an inquiry into what is or is not part of a religion; rather, it is to assess those qualities commonly associated with religion that make it so different from 1997] RACE, RELIGION, AND CULTURAL IDENTITY to the analogous roles that both play with respect to individuals and their standing in our society.6 The passion, prejudice, and hatred that both have evoked arise out of differences that cannot be rationally debated,7 oftentimes involving matters such as beliefs, values, and experiences that simply exist without a logical basis and without a common ground of reference.' In fact, racial discrimination frequently cannot be readily distinguished from religious discrimination, and vice 9 versa. It is not surprising, then, that even though constitutional jurisprudence does not formally combine race and religion, such parallels exist. For instance, government "may not segregate people on account of their race, [as] ...it may not segregate on the basis of religion," nor may it use either as a basis for discriminating against a person." Although the constitutional jurisprudence of both race and religion has appealed to the moral imperative of equality in our society, that goal has been elusive in the race context. The discrepancy can, in part, be traced to the unique and severe hostility and prejudice that some racial minority groups, such as African Americans or Native Americans, have encountered in the past. While both racial and religious conflicts continue to exist in our society, racial divisions have a noticeably greater effect on people's everyday lives than religious divisions.' 2 other beliefs in their significance to individuals. 6. See MILTON M. GORDON, ASSIMILATION INAMERICAN LIFE 1-7 (1964). 7. As a historical matter, religious discrimination during colonial and early postrevolutionary times bore many of the same hallmarks as racial discrimination. See discussion infra Part I.A; see also Choper, supra note 2, at 492 (pointing out that religion and race have been "the object of public (and private) stereotyping, stigma, subordination, and persecution in strikingly similar ways"); Robert A. Destro, "By What