Page 56 - The Importance of Common Metrics for Advacing Social Science Theory and Research

The Importance of Common Metrics for Advancing Social Science Theory and Research: A Workshop Summary
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13034.html

44 THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMON METRICS

In his view, the 1990 census was a turning point in racial measurement
for a variety of reasons. It had a long list of categories that included legacy
races, like white, black, and American Indian. Other categories, which listed
nationalities, were followed by an instruction to circle one of them, causing
many protests by such groups as Arabs, Taiwanese, and Native Hawaiians,
who could not self-identify with the groups shown. Native Hawaiians, in
particular, objected because they did not want to be included as Asians and
Other Pacific Islanders. In addition, interracial family organizations protested
against privileging one race over another in identifying children of biracial
families. Others were exercised to learn that the Census Bureau editing pro-
cedure allocated individuals to one race category (mostly white) even if they
had reported multiple categories.
In 1994 the National Research Council held a conference and published
Spotlight on Heterogeneity: The Federal Standards for Racial and Ethnic
Classification (National Research Council, 1996). OMB hearings were held
around the country, and an interagency working group was formed. The
Census Bureau conducted a number of tests in anticipation of revising the
racial classifications. In October 1997, OMB released a revision of Directive
No. 15 with two major changes: (1) a separate category for Native Hawai-
ians and (2) the option to report more than one race. The implementation
of this new standard was slated to occur no later than January 1, 2003.
The Spotlight report developed eight principles for creating a racial
classification, although very few of them have been honored. The most ob-
vious shortcoming relates to the dictum that “the number of categories be
of manageable size.” Allowing multiple responses and using the five basic
race categories yields 20 unique race categories; overlaying these categories
with Hispanicity creates 40 unique categories. The 2000 census used 13
categories, resulting in 63 unique combinations, or 126 with the addition
of Hispanic/non-Hispanic. Few would argue that these distinct categories
constitute a manageable number. The fact that the Census Bureau has
rarely published data for all 126 combinations is evidence that this system
is unworkable to produce specifications for congressional redistricting, civil
rights, or voting rights enforcement, for example. Other problems have
resulted from these race categories:

• The inability of federal agencies to agree on which categories or
subsets of categories to use for decision making.
• The need for OMB to produce a memorandum outlining a subset
of categories that should receive special attention for civil rights
enforcement (it resorted to the doctrine of hypodescent).
• Lack of compliance with Directive 15 by states, local governments,
and other entities, thus hindering the exchange of statistical reports

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