Higher education expresses concerns with multiple-choice census

Black Issues in Higher Education, Nov 27, 1997 by Starita Smith

Now that the debate is over about whether the U.S. Census should add a multiracial category to its data collecting and the decision has been made to allow respondents to choose as many racial and ethnic classifications as they feel apply to them, the time has come to figure out how this new and confusing information will be tabulated.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has set up a year-long task force to study exactly that: how to tabulate data from the 2000 census.

Earlier this year, the OMB announced that it will allow people to check off as many racial and ethnic categories as they feel apply to them on their census forms. Because some people will check more than one category, government agencies will have to sort and interpret the data as it relates to things like voting districts and educational funding. That is what is causing concern among civil rights groups, ethnic organizations, and higher education officials.

"We support the notion of self-identification, [but] we have major concerns with the tabulation of the information and the interpretation of information - particularly in the area of civil rights and affirmative action," said Eric Rodriquez, policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza.

The OMB announced its multiple-choice decision after years of survey testing and discussions across the country with individuals and groups who wanted to say something about how Americans will be counted in 2000. The agency's decision does not alter the fact that for Census purposes, there are four racial groups - White, Black/African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander - and one ethnic group - Hispanics/Latinos.

The new option confuses racial counting, said Dr. Reginald Wilson, senior scholar for the American Council on Education. He and other observers say that no matter how many categories a person checks, they will still have to be counted as part of only one racial or ethnic group.

"After you've said you're Korean, Mexican American, and Black, you can't have a person who is counted as Black, Korean, and Mexican American," said Wilson. "You're going to pick one [racial or ethnic option], or - whether you like it or not - one is going to be picked for you."

Politics, rather than accurately reflecting the nation's history of racial mixing, dictated the OMB decision to allow people to check more than one race, according to Wilson.

"It was a political decision," he said, "a compromise between [President Bill] Clinton and the Republicans in the Congress who were hoping to confuse things so that it will mask the slipping back of affirmative action programs... I don't think it was a great decision, but it was a political one."

Government officials are also concerned about how this new data will be tabulated, said Nampeo McKenney, senior research and technical advisor at the U.S. Census Bureau. During the coming year, Census Bureau staff members will be consulting with "data users, policy makers and a number of groups that have raised questions" as they determine exactly how to use the multiracial data.

"The question of how this would affect tabulating data for the federal government is very complex," said McKenney, who believes that so few people will check off more than one racial box that the impact will be negligible.

"We did some tests, and the results suggest that overall, 2 percent of the populations would report more than one race," she said, although she added, "One cannot tell, once people become aware that they can report more than one race, [how many will do so]."

Such a small number of people with mixed Black and White ancestry would choose to report more than one race that it wouldn't affect the count of Black people, according to McKenney.

The same cannot be said for some other racial groups, Wilson said. The rate of intermarriage among racial and ethnic groups is increasing rapidly. More than 70 percent of Asian women marry White men, more than 40 percent of Latinas marry White men, and about 10 percent of Blacks marry someone who is not Black, Wilson noted.

The idea of claiming more than one racial heritage has much more appeal among young people than older generations, said Wilson, who predicts that as today's children of intermarriage mature, they will be more likely to acknowledge their multiple racial heritages on the Census and other official forms.

Ideally as time passes, the nation will not have to deal with racial counts so strictly, he said, but with racism so alive and entrenched in this country, Wilson doesn't foresee that happening soon.

Many groups are waiting to see what proposals the OMB task force will develop before taking a stand on the new decision.

"We haven't really taken a position on that particular one," said Angelica Santacruz, associate director of government relations for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).

The net impact of the decision on members of HACU is difficult to determine, Santacruz said, because so much of the data used comes from a different source than the Census.