Editorial
Yes to Mixing It Up For Mixed-Race

For years, the UC system has based its compilation of student race data on antiquated U.S. Department of Education standards that deny the existence of mixed-race individuals. The system is flawed and outdated, especially considering that 6.8 million Americans identify themselves as mixed-race, according to 2000 U.S. Census Bureau data.

And that is bound to rise-41 percent of those in the mixed-race category are under the age of 18, indicating that mixed-race individuals may mark a new norm for future generations.

Finally taking the hint, the U.S. Department of Education jump-started an effort last week to reform its guidelines for compiling student race information, including that of UC, nearly 10 years after the federal government first recommended the change to its agencies. The move would allow college students in the U.S. to identify themselves under more than one racial category-modernizing the data that the media, among other groups, use for analyzing college student demographics. Over the course of the next six weeks, the department will take public input on the proposed change. Our input is an assertive two thumbs up for the change. It's high time we start accepting the fact that race today is more complex than it used to be.

Because of the outdated federal education department guidelines, UC, along with other universities around the country, has attempted to allow students the opportunity to self-identify under more than one race on their applications in order to encourage those applicants to provide information about their background when they otherwise may have abstained. But the futile effort to modernize its own application, without subsequent federal education department changes, has been more misleading than accurate.

For instance, a student applicant can identify himself or herself as both African American and Mexican/Chicano on the UC application by checking more than one box. But in the final race data compiled and reported by the UC Office of the President, only one of the two races would be counted for that student in accordance with federal guidelines. How does UC decide which one to count? According to a spokesperson from the UC Office of the President, when a student checks off two or more races, UC only records the race that physically comes first on the list in the application. In other words, you may get to check more than one box, but UC arbitrarily picks the first one when compiling its data. It so happens that "African American" is the first group on the list, so the total number of blacks in the UC system includes all of those students with one parent who is black.

Now that most students apply for admissions online, the UC spokesperson agreed that the detailed data including the number and kind of mixed-race individuals may be available to a zealous researcher, but it's not what the university releases in its statistics to the public. Furthermore, it may be impossible to retrieve at all the number of mixed-race identifiers applying with the older paper application.

Certainly the process of modernizing a system doesn't come without its own flaws. Many have complained that changing the system now would skew the way analysts can compare data to the past. While this is certainly a valid claim, it doesn't negate the fact that our past data is inaccurate. Comparing wrong numbers to even more wrong numbers does little to enhance the accuracy of race data. Phasing in a new system is the most sound solution.

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