Site Presented By
Monday, Nov 9, 2009
But while many people agree the box-checking is a little retrograde, they think they shouldn't be eliminated, but updated to jibe with a multicultural reality.
What's mostly gone unnoticed in the debate over collecting racial data is that California has changed its approach to collecting racial information dramatically in recent years. According to Don Fields, policy section chief at the state's Office of Vital Records, California is the first state to go to a "multiple race" policy for birth certificates and other vital records. Race is listed on the confidential portion of birth certificates, where the mother and father self-report their race or ethnicity, with an option of listing up to three. Contrary to what is often stated in popular debate, no race is listed for the child.
"California is one of the leading states for collecting race data," says Fields. "We're on the forefront for collecting data because of our ethnic mix here."
There's little agreement in the data and policy world over exactly what the Racial Privacy Initiative would mean for academic research and policy analysis. While the initiative is unlikely to bar scholars from collecting whatever information they want in their own studies, the fact is that most researchers rely on data gathered by the state, and that is what's in question.
Take birth records, for example. Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, says he uses the racial data in birth records in order to predict fertility rates for the state. Those rates differ by ethnic group, so he needs to calculate rates for different groups in order to accurately forecast population growth.
"That's important for infrastructure planning for the state," said Johnson. "How many children are going to be going to California schools, how many freeways are we going to need, what are the implications for road use, water use, housing? That's an example of something you could argue isn't completely necessary for the functioning of society, but that kind of information, I would argue, is a good thing."
The PPIC doesn't take positions on initiatives, and Johnson says he isn't sure how the initiative will affect the collection of that particular data.
Nobody is.
Even supporters of the initiative have different ideas about its impact. Kevin Nguyen, executive director of the American Civil Rights Coalition, which is backing the initiative, believes that birth records would fall under patient records, which are exempted in the initiative. But Eugene Volokh, UCLA law professor and one of Connerly's legal advisors for the initiative, has a different view: "My sense is that's the very sort of thing this would prohibit."
Don Fields of Vital Records said he can't tell how the initiative would affect birth records. Though birth, death, and fetal death information is provided to the federal government for a $1.2 million annual fee, he said the state -- not the federal government -- dictates the contents of those records, suggesting that even if federal law allows the collection of racial data, the state's rules would probably apply here.
And according to Carmen Nevarez, medical director and vice president of the Berkeley-based Public Health Institute, an opponent of the initiative, birth certificates are public records, not medical records, and therefore wouldn't be protected if the initiative passes.
She predicts the same fate for race and ethnicity in disease records -- which have been used, for example to target groups in order to prevent disease. For example, breast cancer attacks white women twice as often as African-American women, but black women are twice as likely to die from the condition. That information helps public health leaders target the most at-risk groups when they promote mammograms and other disease-prevention tools. In Oakland and other cities around the country, public health advocates have used a variety of geographic, cultural and even religious outreach efforts to reduce infant mortality among black families, whose rate is roughly three times that of whites. Likewise, Latinas and Korean women appear to be at greater risk of cervical cancer, and that data has helped with outreach and screening for those groups.
Initiative backers remind critics that the measure would permit the Legislature to allow the state to collect any data that serves a "compelling interest." That doesn't reassure Nevarez, who can envision bickering over what legislators believe is a compelling interest: "It is a scientifically valid tool that over and over again helps us understand where disease comes from and what we do to prevent disease. Why would you take it away?" And researchers at nonpartisan think tanks like PPIC say they might not be in a position to petition the Legislature.
