Racial and Ethnic Identity Required for Federal Government

At the start of this school year, BU students, faculty, and staff were required to complete a self-identifying race and ethnicity survey in order to comply with the US Department of Education’s Higher Education Opportunity Act.  The resulting data is used for the development of national policies as well as the distribution of federal funds according to the Department of Education’s website and an e-mail from BU President Robert Brown.

The two question survey first asked respondents to identify his or her ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino or neither, while the second question asked for identification as white, black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaskan native, or native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.

Unlike the previous survey, the new questionnaire allows people to identify themselves as more than one race, according to BU’s Office of Institutional Research’s website.

Although the format has changed slightly, the government’s collection of data on students’ race and ethnicity is far from new, and in fact began in 1977, according to the article “New Race and Ethnicity Guidance for Federal Education Data” on the Department’s website.

President Brown’s e-mail on August 27 informed the BU community of the changes and directed them to complete the new survey online.  The e-mail further insisted that the collected data would be submitted to the government without individual participant identifiers in survey format and that the survey need only be completed once by each individual.

About Rachel Stine

Rachel Stine (COM'12) is the Campus Editor for the Quad. She loves sailing the uncharted waters of BU's campus goings-on to uncover some of its deepest secrets and hidden treasures.

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