Civil and Human Rights Coalition Urges More Time to Consider Federal Overhaul of Race and Ethnicity Questions
WASHINGTON – The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national civil rights groups, is urging the federal government to slow down its process for considering a major overhaul to the way federal agencies collect data on race and ethnicity in connection with the 2020 Census. The Leadership Conference Education Fund released the report, Race and Ethnicity in the 2020 Census: Improving Data to Capture a Multiethnic America, in 2014 to ensure that civil rights voices were heard in the conversation on how to count minority communities accurately and fairly and produce useful information to implement and enforce civil rights laws.
In comments about the proposed changes filed with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) yesterday, the coalition reiterated several of its positions on data collection practices, the use of separate questions on race and ethnicity, and the creation of a category for people of Middle Eastern or North African origin.
In its comments, the coalition also underscored a core concern about “an accelerated, truncated process” for considering significant changes to the government’s policy on race and ethnicity data that “risks producing hasty and uninformed guidelines on an issue of vital importance.”
The last major overhaul of these standards took place in advance of the 2000 Census, when the process lasted almost three years. In advance of the 2020 Census, OMB has indicated that the process will take be closer to three months. The coalition commented that this schedule “is unnecessarily accelerated, unwise, and potentially damaging to the usefulness of and confidence in the data necessary to support the nation’s civil rights goals.”
“The collection of accurate race and ethnicity data speaks to the heart of who we are as a nation. That’s not something you try to ram through in just three months,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “A fair and accurate census is one of the most important issues for communities of color, and the entire nation. OMB owes it to the country to have a thoughtful and open process so that the implementation of civil rights laws is based on accurate, comprehensive data reflecting the rich diversity of our nation.”
· Click here to read the full comments.
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