Note (Back) — CHAPTER 22

Beyond considering the competence of black servicemen, the Department of Defense had to face the possibility that discrimination was operating at least in some cases of assignment and promotion. Abolishing the use of racial designations on personnel records was one obvious way of limiting such discrimination, and throughout the mid-1960's the department sought to balance the conflicting demands for and against race labeling. Along with the integration of military units in the 1950's, the services had narrowed their multiple and cumbersome definition of races to a list of five groups. Even this list, a compromise drawn up by the Defense Department's Personnel Policy Board, was criticized. Reflecting the opinion of the civil rights forces, Evans declared that the definition of five races and twelve subcategories was scientifically inaccurate, statistically complicated, and racially offensive. He wanted a simple "white, nonwhite" listing of servicemen.[22-56] The subject continued to be discussed throughout the 1960's, the case finally going to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the ultimate authority on government forms. In August 1969 the director announced a uniform method for defining the races in federal statistics. The collectives "Negro and Other Races," "All Other Rates," or "All Other" would be acceptable to designate minorities; the terms "White," "Negro," and "Other Races" would be acceptable in distinguishing between the majority, principal minority, and other races.[22-57]