The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has published an official notice announcing that it is conducting a review and possibly a “limited” revision of the current standards governing the race and ethnicity categories used in collecting and reporting demographic data to the federal government.
Formally known as the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, the standards, which were last revised in 1997, set the framework for the classifications of race and ethnicity data used by various federal agencies, including the Census Bureau and, perhaps most significantly for employers, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).
According to a Federal Register notice published on September 30, 2016, OMB announced that among the topics to be reviewed are: (1) the utility of the two-question format, in which ethnicity and race are solicited separately; and (2) the addition of a Middle Eastern and North African group classification and reporting category.
OMB is soliciting public comments on the issues it has flagged, and has set an October 31, 2016, comment deadline.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.