This panel aims to theorize a social and political process through which members of a status majority group elevate one minority group in order to further isolate and repress another. Such processes of “socio-cultural leveraging” have been identified in a wide variety of locations and time periods. In Europe, populist Dutch parties have publicly sympathized with gays who have been targeted by Muslims; in so doing, they tap into a broader cultural context by claiming one historically marginalized group as part of the national community while stigmatizing another. Similar processes are found in Britain and France, where Hindus and East Asians respectively are compared favorably to Muslims, and where Afro-Caribbeans have been elevated at the neighborhood level compared to South Asians. The process also operates in tandem with gender dynamics, such as when male political leaders identify Muslim women as victims of Muslim men.  In this panel, we assemble a number of examples of this process in order to identify the theoretical elements underpinning this process, including the mechanisms by which leveraging occurs and the forces driving it.  Utlimately we aim to develop this new theoretical concept so it can be applied to a wide range of settings.