A panel of scientific experts from the U.S. Census Bureau, dissolved by the Trump administration earlier this year, is reestablishing itself and convening on Thursday without any official endorsement or formal connection to the statistical agency.
This group, formerly the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, has been rebranded with “Independent” as a prefix, symbolizing a bold move by the research community in opposition to the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle three advisory committees comprised of external experts from academia and private sectors earlier this year.
Unlike in past meetings, no Census Bureau staffers will be involved directly or indirectly during Thursday’s conference.
“I’m uncertain whether our scientific guidance will be received by the Census Bureau,” stated Barbara Entwisle, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina and committee chair. “What is certain, however, is that our recommendations will certainly have no impact if we choose not to share them.”
Reassembling the committee members represents the latest initiative by statisticians, demographers, and other researchers to combat changes in the statistical system deemed concerning since President Donald Trump resumed office at the White House for a second term in January.
Since then, databases on gender, sexual identity, health, climate patterns, and diversity have vanished from federal websites. Meanwhile, individuals responsible for safeguarding data at statistical agencies have either departed or been ousted amidst efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Just last month, Trump dismissed the Bureau of Labor Statistics head after the agency revised job creation numbers downward from the spring.
As recently as last week, the Census Bureau announced it was “unable to renew” a contract that supported a website for an online community associated with its most extensive survey on American life.
And last month, Trump instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally from the head count, which determines political power and federal spending. The 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” are to be counted for the once-a-decade census, and any changes to how the census is conducted requires congressional approval.
During a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Joyce Meyer, who has been nominated to be an under secretary of the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, dodged a direct question about whether Trump should be able to conduct a new census without Congress changing the law, but said she would comply with the law.
Besides the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, the U.S. Commerce Department last winter killed the Census Advisory Committee, which advised on the upcoming 2030 census, and the National Advisory Committee, which offered insight on how to accurately count and collect data from racial, ethnic and other communities. At the time, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the committees’ purposes “have been fulfilled.”
A coalition of civil rights groups were dismayed by the committees’ elimination, describing them in a letter to Lutnick as “a major setback” for the bureau as it prepared for the 2030 census and modernized the work of data collection.
“Eliminating these committees … threatens the bureau’s ability to collect accurate, comprehensive demographic and economic data,” they said in the May letter sent by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Before the committees were eliminated, the Census Bureau had appointed their members. The agency’s top leaders attended the committees’ biannual meetings and received their recommendations. Members of the advisory committees worked for free except for travel expenses and lodging for meetings.
In a statement, the Census Bureau said Wednesday that the agency gets outside input through a rulemaking process for the federal government that invites the public to make comments.
When asked if the Census Advisory Committee might follow the path of the reconstituted scientific panel, Arturo Vargas, its former chairman, said in an email, “We are still discussing options and determining how best to use the scant resources to have the most impact, and exploring how another independent advisory committee is valued added.”
Allison Plyer, a past chair of the scientific advisory committee, said that the Census Bureau has always benefited from the strategic advise of committee members who are experts in their fields.
“They don’t have that now,” said Plyer, chief demographer at The Data Center in New Orleans. “An outside perspective is incredibly important.”
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