SEO Headline (Max 60 characters)
Supreme Court Blocks Census Citizenship Question, for Now
The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the addition of a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census on the grounds that the explanation offered by the Department of Commerce for the action "seems to have been contrived." Many social science groups opposed the addition of the question, which they argued would discourage immigrants from responding and lead to an undercount of the U.S. population.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by the court's four liberal members in regards to the key finding that the agency's explanation for adding the question -- improved citizenship data for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act -- was "incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency's priorities and decision-making process."
"The reasoned explanation requirement of administrative law, after all, is meant to ensure that agencies offer genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public," Justice Roberts wrote in remanding the case back to a lower court. "Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise."
The New York Times noted that the practical impact of the decision was not immediately clear, as the Supreme Court left open the possibility that the Trump administration could offer other explanations for the question. But the 2020 Census forms must be printed soon.
Trending Stories
THE Campus
Resources for faculty and staff from our partners at Times Higher Education.
- Building resilience in students: give them roots and wings
- On students’ terms: offering options in assessment to empower learning
- Seven steps to make an effective course quality evaluation instrument
- Your starter for 10: how can a TV quiz format help courses avoid extinction?
- How reverse mentoring helps co-create institutional knowledge
From Their Professors
to Smooth Transfer Connections