Trump officials review census racial category changes : NPR

An envelope sent by the US Census Bureau contains information about the 2020 national count. The Trump administration is reviewing approved racial and ethnic categories for the 2030 census and other future federal surveys.

Matt Rourke/AP

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Matt Rourke/AP

A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a possible rollback of racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future forms of federal government.

Supporters of these categories worry that any last-minute changes to the U.S. government’s standards for race and ethnicity data could harm the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used to redraw voting districts, enforce civil rights protections and guide policymaking.

These standards were last revised in 2024 under the Biden administration, after research and public debate by the Census Bureau.

A White House agency then approved, among other changes, new check boxes for “Middle East or North Africa” ​​and “Hispanic or Latino” under a reformatted question that asked survey participants: “What is your race and/or ethnicity?” The revisions also require the federal government to stop automatically categorizing people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.

But at a meeting Friday of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C., the chief statistician for the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that the Trump administration had begun a new review of those standards and how the 2024 revisions were approved.

“We’re just at the very beginning of a review. And that, again, doesn’t prejudge any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these issues,” Mark Calabria said. “I’ve certainly heard a wide range of views across the administration, so it’s just premature to say where we’re going to end up.”

The OMB press office did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Calabria’s comments mark the first public confirmation that Trump officials are considering the possibility of not using the latest racial and ethnic category changes and other revisions. They come amid the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a push to stop producing data that could protect the rights of transgender people and threats to the reliability of federal statistics.

In September, the OMB said these Biden-era revisions “continue to be in effect” when it announced a six-month extension of the 2029 deadline for federal agencies to follow the new standards when collecting data on race and ethnicity.

Calabria said the delay gives agencies more time to implement the changes “while we review them.”

The first Trump administration blocked the process of revising standards for racial and ethnic data in time for the 2020 census.

The “Project 2025” policy agenda released by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative Washington-based think tank, calls for a Republican administration to “thoroughly examine any changes” to questions of race and ethnicity in the census because of “conservative concerns that the data in the Biden administration’s proposals could be skewed to support progressive policy agendas.”

Supporters of the changes, however, see the new categories and other revisions as long-needed updates to better reflect people’s identities.

“What’s at stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that make up our country,” says Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “I’m not concerned if the review is being done for the honest purpose of understanding the process. I’m concerned if it’s a predetermined outcome, which would be ignoring the entire process that was conducted in a very transparent manner.”

Edited by Benjamin Swasey