U.S. House of Representatives
105th Congress
Press Release – 24 July 1997
CONTACT: Matthew Phillips (202) 225-6676
RELEASE: July 24, 1997 262 words HORN ANNOUNCES HEARING ON MULTIRACIAL IDENTIFICATIONSpeaker Gingrich to testify at hearing
WASHINGTON, D.C. — (July 24, 1997) — U.S. Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif./38th), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, announced today a hearing to examine proposed changes to the way the federal government measures individuals according to race.
The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Friday July 25, 1997, in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
The Office of Management and Budget will decide this October whether to change its standards for measuring race and ethnicity. A federal task force has unanimously recommended that OMB allow individuals to check more than one of the current racial categories in the Census and on other forms. The task force rejected a proposal to create a separate "multiracial" category.
Data on race is used for purposes ranging from civil rights enforcement to health statistics tracking. Witnesses at the hearing will explain how the proposed changes would affect the use of data on race, including whether double counting of individuals that fall into more than one racial category would become a significant problem.
Witnesses will include House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.); Isabelle Katz Pinzler, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; Nancy Gordon, Associate Director for Demographic Programs, Bureau of the Census; Sally Katzen, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget; Susan Graham, President, Project RACE; Carlos Fernandez, Coordinator for Law and Civil Rights, Association of MultiEthnic Americans; Harold McDougall, Director, Washington Bureau, NAACP; and Dr. Mary Waters, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.
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