Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2024
ISSN
2153-1358
Publisher
Harvard Law School
Language
en-US
Abstract
Eventually, litigation challenging the Executive Order made it to the Supreme Court. Plaintiffs, including the Muslim Association of Hawaii and individual Muslims, challenged the constitutionality of the law.4 In Trump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court found the Executive Order constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion dismisses the claims by the Plaintiffs that the Executive Orders were driven by anti-Muslim animus. The justices separate Trump's comments about Muslims from the Executive Order itself. They "look behind" the Executive Order and use rational basis review to uphold the order on the grounds that vetting immigrants could be "plausibly related to the Government's stated objective to protect the country and improve vetting processes" as an "independent justification" for its legality.5 For progressives, the unwillingness to read religious (and racial) animus into the law was a form of constitutional "gaslighting." 6 In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor (writing for herself and Justice Ginsburg) concludes: "Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus."
The invocation of security by the Administration made it possible for the administration to achieve its objectives.8 The obscuring of race and religion served an important purpose: it allowed the Executive Order to take on the veneer of legitimate, "rational" lawmaking and evade accusations of racism or religious bias, masking the longstanding project of using race and religion to cast some as outsiders to American culture and society.
How does one disrupt a notion of national security that maintains the status quo racial order? Matiagai Sirleaf s volume, Race and National Security, bravely intervenes to answer this question. The volume forces readers to acknowledge the histories and assumptions of national security law that are structured by a belief in racial hierarchy. As the example of the Muslim ban shows, and as Sirleaf notes, "race and racial justice is hidden in plain sight." 9 In this review, I highlight what I see as two of the volume's main contributions: institutional erasure of race and racial harm in the discourse on national security and a redefinition of national security. Focusing on these two aspects of the volume help to illuminate how contributors see race is a primary lens through which to read the formation of the field of national security, its current operation, and its impact.
Recommended Citation
Aziza Ahmed,
Book Review: Hidden in Plain Sight: Redefining the Field of National Security
,
in
15
Harvard National Security Journal
371
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3898
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Immigration Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Race Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons, National Security Law Commons
Comments
Review of Race and National Security: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/race-and-national-security-9780197754641?cc=us&lang=en&