NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
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The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. Harold Liebowitz are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
This project is supported by funds from a National Science Foundation grant to the National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council for support of activities of the Committee on National Statistics.
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Copyright 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS: 1994-1995
NORMAN M. BRADBURN (Chair),
National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago
JOHN E. ROLPH (Vice Chair),
Department of Information and Operations Management, School of Business Administration, University of Southern California
JOHN F. GEWEKE,
Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
JOEL B. GREENHOUSE,
Department of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University
ERIC HANUSHEK,
W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy, Department of Economics, University of Rochester
ROBERT M. HAUSER,
Department of Sociology and Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison
NICHOLAS P. JEWELL,
Program in Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
WILLIAM D. NORDHAUS,
Department of Economics, Yale University
JANET L. NORWOOD,
The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
EDWARD B. PERRIN,
School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington
KEITH RUST,
Westat, Inc., Rockville, Maryland
DANIEL L. SOLOMON,
College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, North Carolina State University
MIRON L. STRAF, Director
Preface
This report has been prepared in response to a request from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in connection with OMB’s role in the development and implementation of standards for racial and ethnic classification in federal statistics and administrative reporting. It summarizes a workshop convened by the Committee on National Statistics in February 1994. (See Appendix A for a list of workshop participants.) The workshop was held in conjunction with work of the committee’s Panel on Census Requirements in the Year 2000 and Beyond because of the role of the census in obtaining racial and ethnic data. (The report of the panel, Modernizing the U.S. Census [Edmonston and Schultze, 1995] was published earlier this year.)
The primary objective of the workshop was to stimulate informed discussion by a wide variety of data users on the current standards. Although developed primarily for federal purposes, the standards have far-reaching influence on state and local governments, businesses, researchers, political and service organizations, and racial and ethnic communities, and workshop participants reflected this diversity. Prior to the workshop, federal agencies provided written comments on their experience with the current standards, focusing primarily on enforcement, statistical, and administrative experience. Other data users—including administrators, services providers, and researchers—submitted materials on the uses of racial and ethnic data.
The Committee on National Statistics thanks all those who helped in this activity from its inception, through the workshop, and to this report. Our first acknowledgment goes to Katherine Wallman, chief statistician, U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who was the intellectual stimulus for the
project. Suzann Evinger, also of OMB, was especially helpful to us in organizing the workshop and working with federal agencies to obtain information on their experience with the standards.
Primary organization and planning for the workshop and this report was overseen by three current and two former committee members: Noreen Goldman, Robert Hauser, Martin David, Dorothy Rice, and Kenneth Wachter. They were assisted by several members of the committee’s staff: Joshua Goldstein served as rapporteur at the workshop and provided an initial draft for many sections of the report; Juanita Tamayo Lott assisted with workshop planning, arranged for participants’ written contributions, and also provided draft material for the report; Betsy Huffman skillfully handled overall administrative duties for the workshop and the initial preparation of the report; Annice Hirt assisted workshop planning and arrangements; Candice Evans ably worked on myriad drafts of the report; and Michele Conrad carefully compiled all the pieces and prepared the report for publication. We are also indebted to Eugenia Grohman, who was responsible for editing the report and made valuable suggestions about its structure. Overall direction for the workshop and this report was provided by Barry Edmonston.
Finally, we are indebted to all the workshop participants for their willingness to participate and to contribute their special knowledge. We especially thank Karl Taeuber for chairing the workshop.
The Committee on National Statistics hopes that this report contributes to the reassessment of OMB Directive 15 and to the larger discussion about racial and ethnic classification in the United States.
Norman M. Bradburn, Chair
Committee on National Statistics
