WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the next U.S. Census and future federal government forms, the list of check boxes for a person’s race and ethnicity is officially getting longer.
The Biden administration has approved proposals for a new response option for “Middle Eastern or North African” and a “Hispanic or Latino” box that appears under a reformatted question that asks: “What is your race and/or ethnicity?”
Going forward, participants in federal surveys will be presented with at least seven “race and/or ethnicity” categories, along with instructions that say: “Select all that apply.”
After years of research and discussion by federal officials for a complicated review process that goes back to 2014, the decision was announced Thursday in a Federal Register notice, which was made available for public inspection before its official publication.
Officials at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget revived these Obama-era proposals after they were shelved by the Trump administration. Supporters of these changes say they could help the racial and ethnic data used to redraw maps of voting districts, enforce civil rights protections and guide policymaking and research better reflect people’s identities today.
“These revisions will enhance our ability to compare information and data across federal agencies, and also to understand how well federal programs serve a diverse America,” Karin Orvis, U.S. chief statistician within the OMB, said in a blog post.
Most people living in the U.S. are not expected to see the changes on the census until forms for the next once-a-decade head count of the country’s residents are distributed in 2030.
But a sea change is coming as federal agencies — plus many state and local governments and private institutions participating in federal programs — figure out how to update their forms and databases in order to meet the U.S. government’s new statistical standards.
Federal agencies that release data about race and ethnicity are required to each turn in a public action plan to the OMB by late September 2025 and get all of their surveys and statistics in line with the new requirements by late March 2029.
The “White” definition has changed and it doesn’t include Middle Eastern or North African!
The OMB’s decision to change its statistical standards on race and ethnicity for the first time in more than a quarter century also marks a major shift in the U.S. government’s definition of “White”, which no longer includes people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups such as Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli, Jordanian, Kurdish, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian and Yemeni.
That move sets up “Middle Eastern or North African” as the first completely new racial or ethnic category to be required on federal government forms since officials first issued standards in 1977 on racial and ethnic data that the Census Bureau and other federal agencies must follow.
For more than three decades, advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups have campaigned for their own checkbox on the U.S. Census and other government forms, and recent research suggests that many people of MENA descent do not see themselves as White, a category that the federal government previously considered to include people with “origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.”
The addition of a “Middle Eastern or North African” box will decrease the number of people who mark the “White” box.
What remains not clear, for example, is how the federal government will consider people who identify as MENA when monitoring and enforcing civil rights. The OMB’s previous guidance, which was rescinded Thursday, used the earlier “White” definition, which included people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa and was not categorized as a “minority race” that would face “disparate impact or discriminatory patterns.” The new standards offer no new guidance about which specific groups the government considers to be a “minority race.”
Still, changes to how the government asks about people’s identities could also reset the national conversation about race and ethnicity.
The introduction of a “Middle Eastern or North African” category may reopen unresolved questions and tensions over the fact that the Middle East and North Africa are regions with no universally agreed-upon borders and with transnational groups.
Arab American reactions
The OMB received public feedback in support of including Armenian, Somali and Sudanese among MENA groups, but it said in its Federal Register notice that the Census Bureau’s research has found that most people who identify with those groups did not select a MENA checkbox when presented with one. “Additional research is needed on these groups to monitor their preferred identification,” the OMB added in the notice. Many advocates of a MENA category, including the Arab American Institute, have criticized the bureau’s previous research for not specifically testing “Middle Eastern or North African” as an ethnic category whose members can be of any race.
Maya Berry, the Arab American Institute’s executive director, said that after decades of campaigning for a MENA checkbox on federal forms, the OMB’s announcement made Thursday “a pretty significant and big day.”
“The fact that Arab Americans have been rendered invisible and other populations from MENA have been rendered invisible without that checkbox has really been harmful to communities,” Berry said.
But at the same time, she said she is concerned that the example groups representing the MENA category in the OMB’s new definition for “Middle Eastern or North African” do not represent the full racial and geographic diversity of MENA communities in the U.S., including those from Black diaspora communities. She expressed worry that that, in turn, could discourage some people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa from selecting the MENA box.
“I didn’t want to go from being rendered invisible to being undercounted,” she added.
Berry said that while she was “incredibly happy” with the new category, that enthusiasm was tempered by the omissions.
“It is not reflective of the racial diversity of our community,” she said. “And it’s wrong.”
The American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee issue a statement praising the revision and inclusion of the MENA box, “which marks the first time that the Arab American community will be counted and recognized on all government forms. The federal government will now be able to better understand and address the unique issues that our communities face while also ensuring that our voices are heard, and our rights protected. This will also make it easier for Arab American organizations, including ADC, to have a better understanding of the community we serve.”
“The rule published this morning denies the racial and ethnic diversity of Arab American communities by excluding Black Arabs and describing MENA without Armenian Americans, one of its largest populations,” The ADC said in a March 28 statement. “ADC shares concerns with our Armenian partners over the fact that they are not included in the MENA category. Additionally, OMB prescribed check box and write-in examples without sufficiently testing them to assess their impact on response rates and data accuracy.”
“This is a long-awaited day,” ADC National Executive Director Abed Ayoub said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, particularly as the federal government begins to apply this revision. From programming designed to uplift our businesses to addressing health disparities and beyond. This is a good first step, however we are aware that more work needs to be done to ensure there is full and accurate representation of the Arab American community.”
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