The Office of Management and Budget announced it would be combining race and ethnicity questions on all Federal forms, but one UNM scholar says the change could impact the ability to research and understand equity issues ranging from poverty to housing discrimination in the U.S. In this episode, Professor of Sociology Nancy López explains intersectionality in research and how the new Federal question format could complicate things in a major way.

Learn more about Professor Nancy López or her work with the Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice.

Read more about OMB’s published revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 from the White House and from the U.S. Census. More information and an example of the proposed question is available in NPR’s story, Next U.S. census will have new boxes for ‘Middle Eastern or North African,’ ‘Latino.