On Census Race/Ethnicity Data Collection

On March 28, the White House quietly announced that the way the U.S. will collect race and ethnicity data had changed. The changes, though announced with little fanfare, are set to impact how higher education institutions collect data on, understand, and describe the racial and ethnic makeup of their student bodies.

Dr. Karly FordThe process to make these changes began in June 2022 with the creation of the Interagency Technical Working Group of Federal Government career staff, who set about to review the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Directive No. 15): Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. This directive identifies the minimum standards for collecting data across federal agencies to ensure appropriate categories for comparison and representation. The working group consulted the most current research and held listening sessions and virtual townhalls. Once they came up with their proposed changes, they invited online public comments, receiving over 20,000 from individuals, private and public organizations, and local government agencies.

These changes will have important impacts on higher education due to data collection via the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). All postsecondary education institutions that receive federal funds must report demographic data to IPEDS. While institutions may collect the data in any way they choose, they then must convert that data into the standard reporting categories for IPEDS, which prior to the changes consisted of a question asking about Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, followed by a question asking about race with a minimum of five race categories. For many institutions, it is easiest to collect data according to IPEDS categories (though there is evidence that institutions aggregate these data in unique ways to present certain images of diversity (see Ford & Patterson, 2018; Holland & Ford, 2021)). The changes in Directive No. 15 will directly impact the categories that IPEDS will require that institutions report, and likely, the way that higher education institutions ask students about race/ethnicity identity.

We outline the three main changes to federal agency reporting on race/ethnicity data in Directive No. 15 and then suggest how these changes may impact higher education.

First, there is the addition of a new race category: Middle Eastern or North African. In the past, people who identify as Middle Eastern or North African have been instructed to select “White” as their racial category. This has long perplexed Middle Eastern and North African people whose lived experiences in the U.S. are filled with moments when they are racialized and minoritized in ways that are distinct from whiteness.

Dr. Megan IantoscaSecond, race/ethnicity will be collected in a single, rather than a two-part question. Before, the first part of the question asked about whether, or not, someone identified as Hispanic/Latino, and the second part of the question asked about race categories. Moving forward, Hispanic/Latino will be a category in a single race/ethnicity question.

Third, the new guidelines require that the students who select more than one race/ethnicity be labeled as “multiracial and multiethnic.” This is a significant departure from previous practices. Many students who select two or more races would not identify as “multiracial and multiethnic” — for example, Afro-Latino students.