Trump Administration Signals Potential Rollback of Census Racial and Ethnic Categories
A potential overhaul of how the U.S. government defines race and ethnicity is underway, as a senior official within the Trump administration has indicated a review of standards established during the Biden administration. The move raises concerns about the accuracy of future data collection and its impact on vital functions like voting rights enforcement and policymaking.
The standards, last revised in 2024, added new categories for “Middle Eastern or North African” and “Hispanic or Latino” to the census questionnaire, asking participants, “What is your race and/or ethnicity?” Critically, the revisions also ended the automatic categorization of individuals identifying with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.
On Friday, Mark Calabria, the chief statistician within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), revealed the administration has initiated a review of these standards and the process by which they were approved. “We’re still at the very beginning of a review,” Calabria stated at a meeting of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C. “And this, again, is not prejudging any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to take a look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these questions.” He acknowledged hearing “a wide range of views within the administration,” suggesting no firm decision has been made.
The OMB press office did not respond to requests for comment. Calabria’s remarks represent the first public confirmation that Trump officials are contemplating a departure from the latest racial and ethnic category changes. This development occurs alongside the administration’s broader efforts to curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, limit data collection related to transgender rights, and cast doubt on the reliability of federal statistics.
Despite the review, the OMB stated in September that the Biden-era revisions “continue to be in effect,” extending the deadline for federal agencies to adopt the new standards to 2029. Calabria suggested this delay was intended to allow agencies more time to implement the changes “while we review.”
This is not the first instance of the Trump administration attempting to influence census data standards. The first Trump administration previously stalled revisions to the racial and ethnic data standards in time for the 2020 census. The conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, outlined a similar stance in its “Project 2025” policy agenda, calling for a thorough review of census questions due to “concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas.”
However, advocates for the changes emphasize their importance in accurately reflecting the nation’s evolving demographics. “At stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that comprise our country,” explained Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “I am not concerned if it’s reviewed in an honest attempt to understand what the process was. I am concerned if it’s for a predetermined outcome that would be to ignore the entire process that was done in a very transparent manner.”
The outcome of this review will have far-reaching consequences for how the United States understands and addresses issues of equity and representation for decades to come.
