U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Multimedia Center

Briefing on the Civil Rights Implications of the
Recent Supreme Court Decision on Sampling and the Census
February 12, 1999

Video of the entire briefing is available here. To view - you need the free RealMedia player software (new G2 version) installed on your computer. You can download it here; then after downloading, simply click on the downloaded program to run the automatic installation.

The briefing consisted of the following three panels:

(1) Panel 1: The Legal and Civil Rights Implications of the Supreme Court Decision
(click here to view the entire panel discussion (1 hr), or jump to an individual below)

Matt Glavin
Southeastern Legal Foundation
(view his remarks)

Mark Neuman
Census Monitoring Board
(view his remarks)

Lorraine Green
Census Monitoring Board
(view her remarks)

Jeffrey Wice
Nat'l Conference on State Legislatures
(view his remarks)

Edward Still
Lawyers Cmte for Civil Rights under Law
(view his remarks)

(2) Panel 2: Enumeration vs. Sampling: Proposals to Remedy the Undercount
(click here to view the entire panel discussion (1 hr 12 min), or jump to an individual below)

Andrew Pincus
Commerce Dept.
(view his remarks)

Robert Hill
Westat
(view his remarks)

Ken Darga
State of Michigan
(view his remarks)

Charles Schultze
Brookings Institution
(view his remarks)

(3) Panel 3: Stakeholders' Concerns on Census 2000
(click here to view the entire panel discussion (57 min), or jump to an individual below)

Wade Henderson
Leadership Conference
(view his remarks)

Marisa Demeo
MALDEF
(view her remarks)

Jack Jackson
Nat'l Congress of American Indians
(view his remarks)

Karen Narasaki
Nat'l Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
(view her remarks)

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PANEL SPEAKERS:

PANEL I:

MATTHEW J. GLAVIN is President and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), a public interest law firm which advocates limited government, individual liberties, private property rights and the free enterprise system. Since becoming president in 1994, he has overseen the legal challenge to the Clinton Administration's plan to use statistical adjustments in the 2000 Census. Prior to joining SLF, Mr. Gavin spent fifteen years in public policy
research.

MARK NEUMAN is a Congressionally appointed member of the Census Monitoring
Board.

LORRAINE GREEN is a Presidentially appointed member of the Census Monitoring Board and Vice President of Human Resources at Amtrak. Prior to that, she was Deputy Director of the Office of Personnel Management, where she played a key role in the Federal government's human resources management system. Before her appointment at OPM, she served as Director of the Office of Personnel for the District of Columbia.

JEFFREY WEISS is assistant counsel to the New York State Assembly and a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures' Redistricting Task Force of which he is a former staff chair.

EDWARD STILL is Director of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Until 1997, he was in private practice in Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in voting rights and employment law. He is a founder and served as chair of the Washington, DC-based Center for Voting and Democracy, an educational group providing information about alternative election systems. He received his J. D. from the University of Alabama.

PANEL II:

ANDREW PINCUS is General Counsel for the Department of Commerce. Prior to his appointment in 1997, he was a partner with the law firm of Mayer, Brown and Platt in New York, where he specialized in Appellate and Supreme Court litigation. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States in the Department of Justice. Mr. Pincus holds a law degree from the Columbia University School of Law.

ROBERT B. HILL is currently Senior Researcher at Westat, a research firm in Rockville, Maryland. Previously, he was Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University. He has served on several high level government panels, including the U. S. Bureau of the Census Advisory Committee on the African American Population in the 2000 Census and the U. S. Bureau of the Census Advisory Committee for the Black Population in the 1980 Census. Dr. Hill received his Ph. D. in Sociology from Columbia University.

KENNETH DARGA is Senior Demographer for the Michigan Department of Management and Budget. He is a member of the U. S. Census Bureau workgroup on Post-2000 Population Estimation Methodology. He served on the steering committee of the Federal State Cooperative Program for Population Estimates. He is author of the forthcoming book, Sampling and the Census: A Case Against the Proposed Adjustments for Undercount. He received Masters degrees in public policy and economic demography from the University of Michigan.

CHARLES L. SCHULTZE is Senior Fellow in economics at The Brookings Institution. He was the Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Census Requirements in the Year 2000 and Beyond. Formerly, he was Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Carter Administration. He received a Ph. D. degree in economics from the University of Maryland.

PANEL III:

WADE HENDERSON is Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), which includes over 180 national organizations working together to solve the ongoing civil rights problems of our time. Since taking the helm of the LCCR in June 1996, he has worked diligently to address emerging policy issues of concern to the civil rights community and to strengthen the effectiveness of the coalition. Prior to the LCCR, he was Washington Bureau Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where he directed the government affairs and national legislative program of
the NAACP. Mr. Henderson received a law degree from the Rutgers University School of Law.

MARISA J. DEMEO is Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's (MALDEF) Washington, DC. office. She develops policy positions for MALDEF and performs legislative advocacy on the national level for Latino civil rights in the areas of immigration, education, political access, employment and access to public funds. Prior to MALDEF, she was a trial attorney for three years in the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. Ms. Demeo received a law degree from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow scholar.

JACK C. JACKSON JR., a member of the Navajo Nation, is Director of Governmental Affairs of the National Congress of American Indians, which is the oldest and largest Indian advocacy organization in the Nation. He is responsible for ensuring, on behalf of the interests of 250 member Tribes, that administrative, legislative and appropriation measures affecting Indian Country do so in a positive manner. For the last ten years, he has worked in Washington, DC representing Tribal governments and organizations. He received his J. D. from the Syracuse University School of Law.

KAREN K. NARASAKI is the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, which has as its mission to advance the legal and civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans through litigation, advocacy, public education and public policy development. Previously, she was the Washington, DC representative of the Japanese American Citizens League. She received her law degree from UCLA.