Note (Back) — CHAPTER 15

Secretary Johnson sent the congressman's complaint to the Personnel Policy Board, which, ignoring the larger considerations posed by Holifield, concentrated on simplifying the department's racial categories to five—Caucasian, Negroid, Mongolian, Indian (American), and Malayan—and making their use uniform throughout the services. The board also adopted the use of inoffensive questions to help determine the applicant's proper race category. Obviously, the board could not abandon racial designations because the Army's quota system, still in effect, depended on this information. Less clear, however, was why the board failed to consider the problem of who should make the racial determination. At any rate, its new list of racial categories, approved by the secretary and published on 11 October, immediately drew complaints from members of the department.[15-5]