An August 1995 notice in the Federal Register detailed efforts by the Office of Management and Budget to revise 1977's Statistical Directive No. 15, which standardized federal record-keeping on matters of race and ethnicity. The existing directive set up the now-familiar categories of Black, White, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaskan Native, but complaints were made on behalf of "multiracial persons" that these categories did not adequately represent them, since the 1990 Census counted at least 4 million children of mixed-race couples.

The options discussed for referring to members of this often mislabeled group ranged from the questionable "mulatto" to the newly invented "TIRAH," which stands for "Tan InterRacial American Humankind." Another proposal favored scrapping such categories altogether in favor of a "Skin-Color Gradient Chart," a comprehensive color wheel of numerically identified skin tones against which each Census respondent's flesh might be compared.

Despite these new proposals, the OMB admits that agencies keeping track of racial and ethnic data oppose any alterations of the existing categories, since it might damage the historical continuity of government data. The skin-tone chart, in particular, might produce future statistical difficulties, since "individuals could change skin colors over a lifetime as a result of exposure to sunlight or disease." What's more, the chart "requires precise, multi-color printing" of government forms, which would be "expensive."

Another concern is that traditional categories would become fragmented when members of each category would likely opt for a new category. But as the OMB sees it, "the perception of others is more valid for evaluating discrimination than individual self-identification."

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