In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government. The development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way and having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race. COUNT 5
QSN1 Who decided on the standards for the classification of race and ethnicity and federal data? ANS1 OMB QSN2 In what year did OMB revise the standards for race and ethnicity classifications? ANS2 1997 QSN3 What did OMB hope to provide with their revision on race and ethnicity in 1997? ANS3 consistent data QSN4 How many races were people asked to mark on the US Census after OMB revised their standards in 1997? ANS4 one or more QSN5 How many races were people asked to report in the US census prior to 1997? ANS5 one