Identifying himself as an Aryan, in 1923, the Supreme Court ruled against him in the case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, which retroactively denied all Indian Americans the right to obtain United States citizenship for failing to meet the definition of a "white person", "person of African descent", or "alien of African nativity".

[3][4] Thind remained in the United States, earned his PhD in theology and English literature at UC Berkeley, and delivered lectures on metaphysics.

His lectures were based on Sikh religious philosophy, but included references to the scriptures of other world religions and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau.

[5] In 1936, Thind applied successfully for US citizenship through the State of New York which had made World War I veterans eligible for naturalization regardless of race.

[citation needed] Bhagat Singh Thind arrived in the United States in 1913 to pursue higher education at an American university.

On July 22, 1918, he was recruited by the United States Army to fight in World War I, and on November 8, 1918, he was promoted to the rank of Acting Sergeant.

[7][full citation needed] He arrived on the Minnesota which was a boat that originated from the Philippines' capital Manila, and his brother Jagat Singh Thind perished on the journey.

He partook on this journey as part of a migration of approximately 7,000 Punjabi men, many of whom left India to escape arrest for their involvement in the Indian independence movement against British rule.

[8][page needed] After his arrival, he moved to Oregon where he worked in lumber mills alongside a diverse community of European, Asian, and other ethnicities.

[12] Thind received his certificate of US citizenship on December 9, 1918, wearing military uniform as he was still serving in the United States Army at Camp Lewis, Washington.

NPR's throughline podcast puts Thind's story in the context of Indo-European language theory, and its abuse to justify racist ideology in the 20th century.