Let my people go (home) to Spain: a genealogical model of Jewish identities since 1492

The Spanish government recently announced an official fast-track path to citizenship for any individual who is Jewish and whose ancestors were expelled from Spain during the inquisition-related dislocation of Spanish Jews in 1492. It would seem that this policy targets a small subset of the global Jewish population, i.e., restricted to individuals who retain cultural practices associated with ancestral origins in Spain. However, the central contribution of this manuscript is to demonstrate how and why the policy is far more likely to apply to a very large fraction (i.e., the vast majority) of Jews. This claim is supported using a series of genealogical models that include transmissable "identities" and preferential intra-group mating. Model analysis reveals that even when intra-group mating is strong and even if only a small subset of a present-day population retains cultural practices typically associated with that of an ancestral group, it is highly likely that nearly all members of that population have direct geneaological links to that ancestral group, given sufficient number of generations have elapsed. The basis for this conclusion is that not having a link to an ancestral group must be a property of all of an individual's ancestors, the probability of which declines (nearly) superexponentially with each successive generation. These findings highlight unexpected incongruities induced by genealogical dynamics between present-day and ancestral identities.Comment: 6 page, 4 figure

Election Law and White Identity Politics

The role of race in American politics looms large in several election law doctrines. Regrettably, though, these doctrines’ analyses of race, racial identity, and the relationships between race and politics often lack sophistication, historical context, or foresight. The political status quo is treated as race-neutral, when in fact it is anything but. Specifically, the doctrines rely upon sanguine theories of democracy uncorrupted by white identity–based political calculations, while in fact such calculations, made on the part of both voters and political parties, are pervasive. In this Article, I appraise the doctrine pertaining to majority-minority voting districts, racial gerrymandering doctrine, the doctrine governing ballot access disputes, and campaign finance doctrine through the lens of white identity politics. Drawing from research in political science, sociology, and history, I argue that these doctrines are blighted by what I identify as “racial blind spots” that are inconsonant with political reality. Given the role that courts play in enunciating these doctrines, their failure to meaningfully engage with the significance of white identity politics renders their governing frameworks and remedial prescriptions inapt. The Article concludes by offering a number of suggestions, both doctrinal and legislative, for how to mitigate white identity politics