The Hispanic Spin

On November 3, 1970, the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) convened the Interagency Committee on Uniform Civil Rights Policies and Practices. Under the general direction of Frank C. Kent, director of the office's Human Rights Division, approximately 30 middleand highlevel equal-opportunity officials from federal departments and agencies with programs affecting poor or minority group citizens were brought together. A Racial Data Collection Subcommittee established by this committee held four biweekly meetings between January 14 and February 25, 1971, and then recommended among other things that the federal government develop uniform racial/ethnic data categories. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was to establish a standard set of racial/ethnic categories to be employed in all data collection efforts and in the evaluations making use of the new data. Each agency was to implement this direction by undertaking the amendment of all data collection instruments with racial designations (Sklar and Cotter, 1971: 1, 5, 8, 11, 98). The recommendations of the subcommittee (also known as the Interagency Racial Data Committee) were designed to be far-reaching, affecting every category of statistical data compiled by federal agencies and contractors. Significantly, however, the subcommittee's membership included not a single representative from the Department of the Interior or from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Moreover, the report collected from the Interior Depart-