An Associated Press dispatch from Detroit, June 4, 1997:

A dark-skinned Egyptian immigrant is suing the federal government to change his racial classification from white to black.

Mostafa Hefny said the classification, based solely on his country of origin, has kept him from seeking jobs, grants, scholarships and loans as a member of a minority group.

He said that even though he's from Egypt, his ancestry is from the ancient black kingdom of Nubia, now part of modern Egypt and Sudan.

Hefny said his hair is kinkier, his complexion darker, and his features more African than blacks such as Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and retired Army Gen. Colin Powell.

"I was born and raised in Africa and they were not," said Hefny, a 46-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen. "And yet they are classified as black and I am classified as white."

The lawsuit, filed in March in federal court in Detroit, targets directive No.15 of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, a document drafted in 1977 that sets racial categories for all federal record keeping, including the census.

The directive defines blacks as having origins with the black racial groups of Africa.

But it defines whites as having origins with original peoples of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt.

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