WHERE THE ONE DROP RULE LIVES ON:

Joshua Bonadona graduated from Louisiana College in 2013. Raised Jewish, he converted to Christianity in college and was known to lead the "Christian devotional" for his football team at the private Baptist school.

In May 2017, Bonadona applied for a job at his alma mater as a football coach. The president of the university, Rick Brewer, and the head coach interviewed him for the job. The head coach relayed to Bonadona afterward that he had recommended him for hire but Brewer did not. Brewer allegedly cited Bonadona's "Jewish blood" as the reason for the hiring decision. (Bonadona's mother is Jewish, and his father is Catholic.)

After learning why he was denied employment, Bonadona sued the college. And he won.

The judge ruled last month that Bonadona had been discriminated against because of his Jewish lineage, deciding that he was part of a protected "race" under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For some Jewish people, it did not feel like a victory. The regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League released a statement in February while the case was ongoing: "ADL is deeply offended by the perception of Jews as a race found in both allegations against the College and the plaintiff's assertions in the lawsuit." After the decision, David Barkey of the ADL called it a "double-edged sword."

Such racial classifications recall a violent history for Jewish people. The Holocaust was a product of the notion that Jews were a biologically "different" race from Germans and, more precisely, the Nazi concept of the Aryan race. This history is not a comfortably distant memory, either, with similar arguments echoing through the alt-right today.

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