By Sean O’Driscoll 

The Scots Irish experience in America is proof that white people should not face discrimination in government contracts, a Washington, D.C court has been told. 

DynaLantic, an aircraft parts supplier which lost out on a lucrative defense contract, is using arguments made by former Reagan Navy Secretary James Webb, who wrote a book on the Scots Irish and claims that the idea of an ethnically similar white American is a “fairytale.” 

DynaLantic is hoping that the court will find unconstitutional a 1977 law which discriminates in favor of African American businesses. 

The law, enacted by Congress as a law of improving income and business skills in black communities, unfairly discriminates against white people, the corporation has argued. 

According to a briefing filed on the corporation’s behalf, Webb’s book on the Scots Irish, entitled, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, contains new research that shows that there is no basis for Congress to discriminate against white people as one ethic group. 

The briefing quotes Webb’s book as attacking the “statistical straw man of ‘white America,’” and that the idea of one white ethnicity is “an imaginary facade.”

Webb’s book mirrors a growing awareness of Scots Irish culture among its U.S. descendants. 

The Scots Irish, also called Ulster Scots, were Scottish Protestants who colonized Northern Ireland after Catholics were driven to the south and west by William of Orange in the 17th century. Many later emigrated to the U.S. to avoid religious persecution and claim new land. 

The new federal district court case is backed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has filed a brief calling for the 1977 law to be abolished. 

In its briefing, the foundation argued that the law was based on the false assumption that all white Protestants in the U.S. had special privilege.

It said Webb’s research had showed that “anyone who was not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) had grounds for complaint about his or her people’s collective ‘struggle.’ And anyone who was a WASP was by default a privileged, less-than-deserving whipping post.” 

Webb was a decorated Marine officer in Vietnam, served as Reagan’s Navy secretary, and is author of six novels.