Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America by David E. Bernstein

By Timothy Sandefur

New York: Bombardier Books, 2022

208 pp., $28

Five years ago, Washington state businessman Ralph Taylor demanded that the government declare him black. Taylor was of mixed race—a DNA test showed he had only 4 percent African ancestry—but he wanted his business to qualify for the special preferences that “black-owned” businesses enjoy under state and feder…