by John Derbyshire

About the author: John Derbyshire is a contributing editor of the National Review, a journal of conservative opinion.

One thing that is fast becoming clear is that Americans at large are much more tolerant of racial profiling than they were before the terrorists struck. This fact was illustrated on September 20, when three men “of Middle Eastern appearance” were removed from a Northwest Airlines flight because other passengers refused to fly with them. A Northwest spokesman explained that under FAA rules, “the airline has no choice but to re-accommodate a passenger or passengers if their actions or presence make a majority of passengers uncomfortable and threaten to disrupt normal operations of flight.”

Compare this incident with the experience of movie actor James Woods. Woods took...