Department of Education reshapes racial, ethnic data standards

This fall, high school students applying to Vassar College and all institutions of higher education will now be able to select as many racial and ethnic categories on the Common Application as they choose, a regulation change which comes as a result of over ten years of revision work from the federal government.

Beginning in 1997, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the Standards for Maintaining, Collecting and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity—guidelines mandating that people be allowed to mark more than one race on federally required forms. The old standards, in place since 1987, allowed citizens to select only one of five race categories—American Indian, Asian, Black, Pacific Islander and White.

Increased levels of intermarraige and immigration have diversified the way we conceive our racial identities, and with less definitive groupings, the 1987 system quickly became obsolete. "For many people, not having the ability to select more than one category meant choosing between their father and their mother," said Director of Institutional Research David Davis-Van Atta, who was a member of several of the task forces working to re-examine the issue that were convened in the late 1990s by the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health.

When the OMB released these new standards, the U.S. Department of Education began work on how that data would be collected and reported, specifically by colleges and universities across the country. "The Department took 10 years to try to figure out how to do this," explained Registrar Daniel Giannini. "There are two issues in the final report: one is how you collect the data, and how you report it. These are reported on official government surveys that schools have to complete on an annual basis. They came out with these guidelines in 2007, and they gave schools until the 2010-2011 academic year to implement the changes."

In their final report, the Department mandates that racial and ethnic data be collected in two-question format on the Common Application for Undergraduate College Admission or on the college's or university's own custom application. The question first asks whether the respondent is Hispanic/Latino. The second question asks, "Regardless of your answer to the prior question, please select one or more of the following ethnicities that best describe you." Then the form lists the five main categories of race, with each one having various sub categories listed beneath it. "So if you are black," explained Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Davis Borus, "you can say you're African, Caribbean, African American, etcetera. You can be quite specific, and now you can check all that apply. The students who are applying for admission next year—the ones who are currently high school seniors—will be filling out the Common Application with those new questions."

Because incoming students will hereafter be questioned in this format, the College—along with other institutions across the country—will have to recollect racial and ethnic data from its current continuing students. "The problem with the change," said Giannini, "is that we have all the students who are currently here and will be here next year. The Department of Education recommends that schools recollect the information from the current students so that we can report it all in the same format. So, to do this we are going to survey all the current continuing students sometime following October Break."

"By surveying the people that are already here," explained Borus, "we will get information that will be in the same format as the information for students who are going to be arriving, and so it allows us to have statistics that mean something." In the coming weeks, the College will send out an e-mail explaining and including the link for the survey; "In addition to that," said Giannini, "whenever a student goes to fill out a time sheet for a student employment job, the site will redirect to the survey."

Though the new data regulations were considered and revised over the course of 10 years, many in higher education take issue with aspects of the new guidelines. One particular point of contention is that although the new form allows people to select more than one category, much of that nuance and specificity will be lost in the reporting process.

"We're going to lose some detail in our reporting," said Giannini. "Right now, the different racial and ethnic classifications are all separate—you check one, and whatever one you check you're reported as that. Now you're going to be able to check multiple races, all of a sudden the chart gets huge. So the Department said that when reporting, schools have a separate reporting category for people who chose more than one race, which means you lose the detail of what the two races were."

As Giannini explained, if a student selects, for example, Asian and White as his or her racial background, that student will only be reported to the federal government as within the "Two or More" category, not in either the Asian or White category. "The problem is," said Davis-Van Atta, "the ‘Two or More' category is exactly like a suitcase with a false bottom—something's inside but you don't know what." As Davis-Van Atta explained, though the new regulations provide a visibility of a student's mixed heritage, it renders the specific heritage invisible.

Because of this "Two or More" category, many college guidebooks that acquire their data from federal reports will likely start showing a decline in the numbers for the specific racial categories, since many who were once reported in one of these groups will now be classified in the "Two or More" category. Borus, however, explained that even though Vassar is mandated to report racial and ethnic data in this format to the federal government, the College can keep its own records however it likes.

"Some of the comparability of our data of students' heritage is going to be lost in the translation of federal reporting standards," said Borus, "so we have to figure out ways in our own internal reporting to figure out a cogent way to keep all the detail."

Davis-Van Atta explained that when he sat on one of the federal task forces, he advised against using a "Two or More" category and instead suggested that each data group be reported with a minimum and maximum values—the minimum being the number of people who chose that racial category only, and the maximum being the number of people who chose that racial category and one or more others. Davis Van-Atta explained that this may be how Vassar decides to keep its data internally.

One other significant sticking point with many critics is the rationale behind the first question, which asks "Are you Hispanic/Latino?" Anyone who responds "Yes" to this question will be reported to the federal government solely as Hispanic/Latino, regardless of however they answer the second question. "If you check Hispanic/Latino in the first question," noted Davis Van-Atta, "none of your other data is reported: you are Hispanic/Latino and nothing else. People should know that. This was designed to boost Hispanic congressional numbers."

"This is what this task force has worked for 10 years to come up with," added Borus, "and frankly a lot of us look at it and scratch our heads. I think they felt that the Hispanic population was being underreported. So if you had a student that was, let's say, Cuban, he may have been classified as Black instead of Latino."

While in federal reports the numbers for Hispanic/Latino students will likely show a great increase, Vassar can keep its own records so as not to lose the detail of how Hispanic/Latino students answered the second question.

In addition to how the new regulations will skew reporting procedures, schools will also have to reformat much of their internal data systems.

"Vassar" explained Giannini, "has been and will be putting in a lot of work to change the reports on Banner, so it's not something that we necessarily welcome. On the other hand, it's something that needs to be looked at to make sure that we're getting the detail that reflects the current realities in the country. I think everybody's on board with the goal."