The U.S. Census finally hit Linfield on April 9 after weeks of hype. Students received a number of e-mail notifications and fliers reminding them of the coming census and that filling it out was mandatory.
While the census was, in general, successfully administered (at least among residence halls), we feel that Linfield’s approach to preparing students for the census was handled poorly.
We agree that the census is important and that it should be filled out by students. But this should not be simply because they are told to do so. We feel the college could and should have tried to raise awareness about the reasons for filling out the census rather than just cramming it down our throats.
Many young adults have an innate urge to resist authority. Shoving the census in their faces could have caused some students to avoid or resist taking it simply because they were told it was mandatory.
It is certainly true that we are all legally required to fill out the census, but how many Americans take this law seriously? Read any conservative, online blog, and you’ll see many Americans proudly declaring that they simply threw their censuses away.
According to the U.S. Census code, “Whoever, being over 18 years of age, refuses or willfully neglects … to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey … shall be fined not more than $100.”
And anyone who knowingly fills in false information “shall be fined not more than $500,” according to the code.
This law, as intimidating as it may be, is hardly enforced. Most often, those who do not fill out the census are pestered by census workers for a short time. The U.S. Census Bureau readily admits that it views fining people as a last resort.
Students were told they were legally required to fill out the census, but what good is a law that isn’t enforced? We think it is safe to say that students could have refused to participate in the census without fear of legal recourse.
Those who didn’t complete the census (whether they forgot or otherwise) were notified by student services to complete it by a certain deadline. But the “punishment” for continued refusal is simply that the college completes it for you. A letter from the U.S. Census Bureau to Linfield and other institutions said, “For students who do not respond, colleges and universities can lawfully disclose directory information from student records to the Census Bureau without prior consent of the student, parents or guardians. Directory information includes a student’s name, date of birth, school address and dates of attendance.”
This is relevant information that Linfield should have shared with students. But it almost makes us wonder why we even need to bother with the census when the college can just hand over our information. Admittedly, directory information does not include aspects such as race and gender, but this information does not affect representation, anyway.
We think the college needlessly emphasized students’ legal obligation to complete the census reports when it was clear that there would be no legal repercussions for students who did not complete it. The census may have been better received if Linfield had instead advertised the benefits of filling it out.
It is presumable that this was the first time students were given the opportunity to participate in the census, as we were all between 10-14 years old the last time it was distributed. Linfield should have treated this “first experience” more carefully and with more disseminated information, rather than practically resorting to scare tactics.
The school would not need to go into all the details of why the census is important (students often lack the attention span to get through such long campus-wide e-mails), but they could have given students some basic reasons why they are being told to do something, if for no other reason than because the college newspaper might write a scathing editorial about such inaction.
The school had 10 years to plan how it would conduct the census. Was this truly the best they could come up with?
-The Review Editorial Board