ONE MONTH AFTER nineteen Middle Eastern Arabs carried out the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Boy Scout leader Khalil Baydoun and five Arab American members of his troop were traveling by ferry from Mackinac Island, Michigan, after a long day of bicycle riding. A fellow passenger on the ferry noticed the boys using walkie-talkies and taking photographs of the Mackinac Bridge, and, in the tense post-attack atmosphere, he grew suspicious. The passenger called the police, and after the ferry docked, Baydoun and the five scouts were taken to a van, where they were detained for ninety minutes while the FBI ran background checks. When the boys were allowed to briefly step out of the van to watch a parade of trucks decorated with American flags pass by, they heard onlookers shouting "Death to the Arabs!"

The boys were all teenagers who had...