EEOC’s Final PROPOSED Changes to EEO-1 Report
They are not final yet, but the final proposed changes to the EEO-1 Report’s race and ethnic categories have just been announced by EEOC.
The final proposed changes include:
Adding a new category titled “Two or more races not Hispanic or Latino”;
Separating “Asians” from “Pacific Islanders”;
There are other proposed changes as well, but those two seem the most interesting.
In addition, in terms of job categories, proposed changes include:
Dividing “Officials and Managers” into two levels based on responsibility and influence within the organization: “Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers” and “First/Mid-Level Official and Managers”; and
Moving non-managerial business and financial occupations from the “Officials and Managers” category to the “Professionals” category.
The public will have 30 days to comment on these final proposed changes.
Read the EEOC press release, “Commission Approves Revisions to EEO-1 Report” for more details.
Presumably, in addition to “two or more races not Hispanic or Latino” there is an option for two or more where one IS Hispanic or Latino.
As couples in various multiracial permutations have children, this complicates the task of classification, a task antithetical to the ultimate goal of color-blindness, though paradoxically useful in monitoring progress towards that goal.
Question: How would you describe the daughter of a Hispanic/African-American mother and an Asian-American/Caucasian father?
Answer: Probably as exotically beautiful, race unknown. She would likely self-identify as “no race.”
Hence the importance of this point in the new proposal:
“Strongly endorsing self-identification of race and ethnic categories, as opposed to visual identification by employers.”
Self-identification might lead to more people selecting “other.”
I have to admit that on the relatively rare occasions I am asked to self-identify racially, I am tempted to boycott racialism (not the same as racism) by simply selecting “other” or specifying “Hungarian-Jewish-American,” a racial/ethnic/religious group whose colorful heritage I proudly embrace despite not speaking the language or practicing the religion.