In September, the Trump administration announced significant changes to the census, which will next be taken in 2030 and shapes our understanding of the diversity of this nation. These changes include:
- Removing questions about race and ethnicity from the census form.
- Removing questions about sexual orientation.
- No longer counting undocumented immigrants, or immigrants here on visas and other temporary status, toward each state’s seats in Congress.
- Using tax, Homeland Security and other government records to decide each person’s legal status, and possibly adding a legal status question to the form.
- Making Native people harder to count. Without a race question, it will be harder to count Native people who live off tribal lands or who also identify with other races.
The census is a count of every person living in the United States, taken every 10 years. It is written into the Constitution, and the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, requires it to count the “whole number of persons in each State,” not only citizens, so that every person is included in federal decision-making (theGrio). It also decides how many seats each state gets in Congress, how voting districts are drawn and how federal money for schools, hospitals and housing is shared across the country. The census has asked about race since the first count in 1790. And today, that data is one of the main ways we can prove discrimination exists in federal decision-making. The proposed changes are estimated to put $778 billion in annual federal investment at risk (Bloomberg Government).
The administration says asking about race lowers response rates and doesn’t serve the census’s purpose of counting people for congressional seats (Federal Register). That might sound neutral, but it’s hard to separate from other decisions being made this year. In April, the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, a ruling the Census Bureau cites in its own proposal (Federal Register). In July, the Department of Education barred its civil rights investigators from using data on discipline, Advanced Placement enrollment and admissions to show discrimination in schools (Chalkbeat). Without race data, it becomes even harder to show how congressional voting maps dilute Black or Latino votes in the first place.
Communities have already spoken up. Brenda Wright of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said “the census data is used to enforce all kinds of anti-discrimination laws” (Amsterdam News). The National Congress of American Indians said that “the Census is more than a population count,” and that its data shapes funding and policy for tribes (Inside Higher Ed). Latino, Asian American, Arab American and LGBTQ organizations have also shared comment templates so their communities can respond (Census Roadmap).
The Census Bureau is accepting public comments on the proposed change until November 2. Public comments do matter, especially when they are substantive and evidence-based. Federal agencies are required to read and respond to them, and a large number of detailed comments can slow or change a rule. So far, more than 108,000 comments have been submitted by people just like you (Regulations.gov). If the census stops asking about race, racial gaps in our communities won’t disappear. We will only lose our ability to see them, understand them and know whether they are getting better or worse.
Sources: Federal Register, Inside Higher Ed, theGrio, Amsterdam News, Bloomberg Government, Chalkbeat, Census Roadmap, Regulations.gov.
Take Action:
- Leave a public comment on docket USBC-2026-0628 at regulations.gov before November 2. You can write your own, or use a template from your community, like those from the NAACP, NALEO Educational Fund or AAJC, gathered at Census Roadmap. Either way, the templates can help you structure a comprehensive response.
From Anti-Racism Daily
