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The OMB Speaks..
Date: July 1997
The Office of Management and Budget came out with its recommendations on July
8 about the multiracial classification as follows:
The standard should allow individuals who wish to do so to reflect more than
one race when responding to Federal data collections. (While the number of
MIXED RACE persons is currently small, this population is growing)
There should NOT BE SEPARATE RACIAL CATEGORY (a check box) CALLED
"MULTIRACIAL." (This stand alone category provided no useful information and
the research showed that there is no general understanding of what the term
means. Further, having a separate category would, in effect, CREATE ANOTHER
POPULATION GROUP, AND NO DOUBT ADD TO RACIAL TENSION AND FURTHER
FRAGMENTATION OF OUR POPULATION.)
To provide information about their MIXED RACIAL heritage, individuals should
be able to check one or more of the historical categories that have been used
for the past 20 years.
When the data are reported, counts should be provided of the number of
persons who checked two races, three races, four races; information on the
combinations should also be provided. (The research showed that allowing
individuals to mark one or more races has no statistically significant effect
on the number of Blacks and Whites, but that the counts for American Indians
and Alaskan Natives and for Asian and Pacific Islanders, may be reduced.
Historically comparable counts for these populations can be established
through data tabulation procedures.
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