What authority decides what races exist?
<p>There are at least three typical situations where race/ethnicity/sex are requested on applications:mortgage, health, and employment.</p>
<p>What authority decides that there exists a race called white?
I could understand grouping say Irish, Scottish, and British together as a race, or Greek, Italian, and Israeli, but my understanding is that Persian, Greek, Egyptian, and Scottish are all considered to be of race white? I was surprised when Persian friend stated that he was told to list his race as white.</p>
<p>Are there separate laws/statutes for mortgage/health/employment? Do they originate from Congress, or from actual federal departments?</p>
<p>Then what separates ethnicity from race? Are Dominicans black/hispanic/white?</p>

<p>From <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/cochise-sociology-os/chapter/legal-definition-of-race/" rel="noreferrer">Lumen <em>Introduction to Sociology</em>:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many governments provide legal definitions of race for purposes of
census-taking and calculating budgets for governmental programs such
as those that promote equal opportunity employment. For instance, in
the U.S. Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S.
Census Bureau currently uses race and ethnicity as self-identification
data items. In this system, the residents choose the race or races
with which they most closely identify and indicate what their ethnic
origin is (e.g., Latino).</p>
<p>The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the
race or races that respondents consider themselves to be. OMB defines
the concept of race as outlined for the U.S. census as not “scientific
or anthropological” and takes into account “social and cultural
characteristics as well as ancestry”, using “appropriate scientific
methodologies” that are not “primarily biological or genetic in
reference. ” The race categories include both racial and
national-origin groups.</p>
<p>Governmental Use of Racial Categories This image illustrates U.S. real
median household income per year by race and ethnicity from 1967 to
2008, as compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.</p>
<p>Race and Law Enforcement</p>
<p>In an attempt to provide general descriptions
that may facilitate the job of law enforcement officers seeking to
apprehend suspects, the FBI employs the term “race” to summarize the
general appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other
such easily noticed characteristics) of individuals whom they are
attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of law enforcement
officers, it is generally more important to arrive at a description
that will readily suggest the general appearance of an individual than
to make a scientifically valid categorization by DNA or other such
means. Thus, in addition to assigning a wanted individual to a racial
category, such a description will include: height, weight, eye color,
scars, and other distinguishing characteristics.</p>
<p>British Police use a classification based on the ethnic background of
British society, for example W1 (White-British), M1 (White and black
Caribbean), and A1 (Asian-Indian). Some of the characteristics that
constitute these groupings are biological and some are learned
(cultural or linguistic) traits that are easy to notice.</p>
<p>In many countries, such as France, the state is legally banned from
maintaining data based on race, so the police issue wanted notices to
the public that include labels like “dark skin complexion. ”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The categories used by the federal government are specified by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in its <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-10-30/pdf/97-28653.pdf" rel="noreferrer">Statistical Policy Directive 15, &quot;Standards for Maintaining, Collecting,
and Presenting Federal Data on Race
and Ethnicity&quot;, 62 FR 58782</a>.  The directive was last updated in 1997.  The standard itself is at the end of that document (bottom of page 58788), and several pages of background and rationale are also included, as well as information about the process by which the standard was developed.</p>
<p>The directive specifies in Section 3 of the standard that it is to be used for essentially all federal and federally sponsored purposes.   It might also be used voluntarily by state and local governments or other organizations, to make it easier to correlate with federal data.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget" rel="noreferrer">OMB</a> is an executive branch agency, part of the Executive Office of the President (i.e. &quot;the White House&quot;), and this directive seems to have followed the usual federal rulemaking process  used when executive branch departments create regulations (<a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10003.pdf" rel="noreferrer">overview</a>).  In principle this is supposed to happen pursuant to laws passed by Congress, but I wasn't immediately able to tell which laws those were.  It might be that some statutes include a general requirement to collect statistics on race and ethnicity in certain situations, and the government infers from this that it has the authority to create standards on how to do so.</p>
<p>Obviously the standards are controversial and many people have questions or concerns about the categories that were chosen.  The OMB began a limited review of the standard in September 2016, see <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/09/30/2016-23672/standards-for-maintaining-collecting-and-presenting-federal-data-on-race-and-ethnicity" rel="noreferrer">81 FR 67398</a>, and there is a <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2016-0002-0001/comment" rel="noreferrer">docket</a> with about 1200 public comments they received.  I'm not sure whether the review was ever completed (the subsequent change in presidential administration may have had something to do with that) but in any case it does not appear that any revisions were made.</p>
<p>The distinction between ethnicity and race seems to predate the 1997 directive, perhaps coming from the previous version of 1977.  The 2016 review notice cites this as &quot;42 FR 1926 May 12, 1977&quot;, but I haven't been able to find its text yet (and the date doesn't seem to be consistent with the page number).</p>
<p>I don't think any version of this document makes any statements such as &quot;Dominicans shall identify as X&quot;.  It is always left to each individual respondent to decide which classification they believe best fits their self-identification.</p>

united-states