Boyd links erosion of census safeguards to administration actions

Boyd says Congress faces census choices before 2028 lock-in

In a September 10 opinion column in The Guardian, Cornell University professor danah boyd presented a sequence of Trump administration actions that she said is weakening the U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to resist partisan interference. Her account connected a June order concerning confidentiality techniques, an August report published using the bureau’s brand, a subsequent Commerce Department policy change and proposed rules for the 2030 census.

Boyd distinguished political use of rigorously produced census data in redistricting from direct interference with the infrastructure that produces the data. Politicians have long used census data to compete through redistricting, she wrote, but she said the actions during the summer targeted the mechanisms that allow the bureau to resist partisan influence.

For more than a century, Census Bureau professionals have developed protocols and norms intended to resist such interference, Boyd wrote. She said scientists and other experts have worked together to produce data used by the country’s democratic processes, but described those systems as being upended.

Boyd wrote that the Trump administration had forcibly retired thousands of dedicated civil servants who held extensive institutional knowledge and then placed what she characterized as impossible demands on those who remained. In June, she said, the administration ordered the bureau to stop using “the most sophisticated techniques available to protect the confidentiality of the public’s responses when publishing data.”

Government scientists were directed to return to methods that horrified their peers, according to Boyd. She said restrictions on the tools available to experts left civil servants choosing among publishing unusable data, risking the privacy of Americans’ data or not publishing data.

In August, Boyd wrote, people she described as “partisan data geeks” used a government talent-recruitment program to enter the bureau, obtain access to government data and publish a report using the bureau’s brand. The report argued that numerous noncitizens voted in the 2020 election, reinforcing Trump’s contention that he did not lose the election fairly, according to Boyd.

Boyd said the report was unsigned, lacked methodological detail and error metrics, and went through without oversight by the bureau’s experts. She assessed that the episode caused reputational damage to the Census Bureau and wrote that economists and advocates across the partisan spectrum expressed outrage over what they viewed as politicization of the agency.

Days later, the Commerce Department removed language prohibiting political interference from the agency’s official scientific integrity policy, Boyd wrote.

As background to that sequence, Boyd said the Census Bureau outlined proposed changes governing the 2030 decennial census. She wrote that the bureau indicated it planned to stop collecting race data and count only a subset of the population. The proposed changes are part of residence rules that the bureau produces in the middle of the decade to finalize its operational plan, according to Boyd.

Boyd wrote that the proposed changes were presented as making the census “colorblind” and protecting respondents’ privacy. In her assessment, the changes would prevent enforcement of anti-discrimination laws anchored to census data, including the Voting Rights Act.

Boyd traced the census’s political importance to the country’s constitutional design. Before that design, she wrote, kings used censuses to levy taxes and conscript men for war. Article 1, Section 2 tied being counted to states receiving financial resources and political representatives, while assigning Congress the task of building a process that anchored representation to population.

The constitutional approach called for counting everyone and allocating political representation accordingly, Boyd wrote. She said residents wanted to be counted and politicians wanted larger counts of their own constituents.

Politicians have sought from the beginning to shape census data to their advantage, according to Boyd. She wrote that Congress responded with rules governing both how the data are constructed and how they are used, while courts built guardrails intended to ensure that the public is counted and that Congress retains final authority over how the data are produced.

Boyd used a Jenga analogy to describe institutional safeguards being removed one at a time while pressure builds and responsibility for a possible collapse is deferred. She wrote that few politicians publicly acknowledge trying to dismantle the administrative state, although some do, and assessed that the system was near collapse while civil servants tried to keep it operating.

The technical nature of census work has also created a vulnerability, Boyd wrote. She said members of the public pay little attention to statistical methods and policies governing data, and concluded that the resulting lack of attention weakens the American republic.

Taken together, Boyd wrote, the incidents show established norms and protocols being battered even as the Trump administration uses other standard procedures. She said the upheavals damage institutional legitimacy and census data, and argued that a functioning democracy depends on public trust in that data.

Civil servants will try to accomplish what they called “the impossible,” Boyd wrote, but she said their efforts cannot substitute for support from Congress and the public. Without an understanding or appreciation of their work, she argued, those safeguards cannot be maintained.

Congress is constitutionally responsible for the census and has final authority over its questions, the population counted and acceptable methods, Boyd wrote. She said the Congress elected in November will make consequential decisions about the next census and faces a choice between taking an active role in governing it or allowing the Trump administration to weaponize the process.

Although much of the public may not focus on the census until 2030, Boyd wrote, key systems will be set by 2028. By then, she said, the operational plan will be finalized, the questions decided and staffing capacity locked in.

Boyd argued that Congress has the power and responsibility to ensure the census is functional and legitimate. She faulted both parties for failing to take that responsibility seriously and for allowing executive-branch politicization, which she said endangers what she called the American project.

Boyd is the Geri Gay professor of communication at Cornell University and the author of “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census.”