census

Should the Census Consider Latinos a "Race"?

by Geraldo Cadava

Although major Latino civil rights organizations have endorsed a proposal to combine two census questions and make "Hispanic or Latino" a racial category. Afro-Latino/a advocates say that this would make it impossible to evaluate internal divisions around skin color and ancestry. 

Southern Republicans Want to Narrow the Census Definition of Black Identity – Why?

In a case that involves both the history of voting rights and exclusion and changes in the Census's recognition of complex ethnic identities since 1980, the Supreme Court may reverse a longstanding assumption about which voters are properly understood to be Black. 

The 1950 Census was a Last-of-its-Kind Treasure Trove of Information

by Dan Bouk

"As we celebrate the release of the 1950 Census records, it is an opportune moment to think again about the role the census has played — and may still play — in preserving the nation’s past by preserving a substantial accounting of each of us."

Clarifying the Census Bureau's Accounting of "White" Identity Puts Demographic Change in Perspective

by Morris Levy, Richard Alba and Dowell Myers

The 2020 Census seemed to show the white population was in freefall. But few questioned whether differences between the 2010 and 2020 censuses reflected real demographic change or simply statistical noise as the the Census makes incomplete progress toward accounting for multiracial identity.

What the ‘Majority Minority’ Shift Really Means for America

by Justin Gest

"Through a historical lens, being white in America today is like belonging to a once-exclusive social club that had to loosen its membership criteria to stay afloat."

Both the Right and Left Need to Remember Demography is Not Destiny

by Adam Serwer

The 2020 Census has fueled optimism on the left and panic on the right about American demographics. But past periods of ethnic change have shown the fluidity of racial categories defies expectations.

Race, Redistricting, and the 2020 Census: Will the Majority Tolerate Minority Rule Much Longer?

by Heather Cox Richardson

"For a century now, the machinery of redistricting has favored rural whites. With the 2020 census information reinforcing the idea that white, rural Americans are under siege, it seems unlikely that lawmakers in Republican states will want to rebalance the system."

Scrapping the Color Code: A Post-Racial America is Inevitable

by Jim Sleeper

The 2020 Census is showing that whiteness is no longer the civic and cultural norm, but also that bureacratic color-coding can't support a version of civic Americanism that can stand up to a growing white backlash. 

Stuck At 435 Representatives? Why The U.S. House Hasn't Grown With Census Counts

Legislation passed in 1929 sets a cap on the size of the US House of Representatives, making the decennial census a high-stakes battle for precious seats. Expanding the House would make it more democratic and avoid taking existing seats away. 

Can Trump Change A Key Census Count? Supreme Court Hears His Claim

Margo Anderson says that the Trump administration's plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census is unprecedented in the history of the count. 

The Supreme Court Has to Choose Between Trump and the Nation’s Founders

by Amanda Frost

The Trump administration's efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census count is a test of whether the SCOTUS conservatives will sincerely follow originalism. 

The Harvard Mimeograph

by Dan Bouk

The story of the 1920 census shows how difficult it can be to disentangle the methodology of the Census from the political impact of the results. 

Representation Suffers When We Give Up on Census

by Karim Michel Tiro

The abrogation of the census count, if it is allowed to happen, would harm our ability to make sound decisions. It also would mark a further erosion of that basic fairness that is essential to any democratic republic worthy of the name.

Trump’s Push To Skew The Census Builds On A Long History Of Politicizing The Count

by Paul Schor

The Trump administration’s effort not to count undocumented immigrants is nothing less than an effort to redistribute political power, one that calls to mind a particularly fierce battle over the 1920 census that highlights the role of these broader fights.

Trump Officials Ask To Delay Census Data For Voting Districts, House Seats

If approved, the request could throw a wrench into redistricting plans in many states.

Counting Everyone—Citizens and Non-Citizens—In the 2020 Census is Crucial

by Brendan A. Shanahan

Even without a citizenship question, the Trump administration wants to shape how states reapportion their legislatures.

100 years ago, Congress threw out results of the census

by Walter Reynolds Farley

Census 2020 is far from the first census to set off bitter political fights. One hundred years ago, results from Census 1920 initiated a decadelong struggle about how to allocate a state’s seats in Congress. 

Trump's Supreme Court Challenge Has a Historical Precedent

by Bethany Berger

As Trump agrees reluctantly to respect the court—at least in the case of the census—he follows, in part, that long-ago legal victory of the Cherokee Nation.

Why Trump’s Census Play Is Blatantly Unconstitutional

by Bruce Ackerman

We owe Congress’ control of the Census not just to the Constitution, but to Republicans doing the right thing in the 1920s. Now Trump wants to roll it all back.  

Adding a Citizenship Question to the Census Will Return It to Its Racist Origins

by Derek Litvak

The Trump administration is now attempting to do exactly what slaveholders did in the eighteenth-century: use the Constitution to inflate the political power of a vocal minority.