Multiracial People

A rainbow runs through Tyler Winograd's veins. His mother, Maile, is half black and half Chinese American. His father, Jeff, is white and grew up Jewish in Evanston, Ill. "I always check 'Other' on my college applications," Winograd said. But on election day, Winograd was filling out a different kind of form. The 18-year-old accompanied his parents to the polling place across the street from their Glencoe, Ill., home to cast a ballot for president for the first time.

A committee of the University of California's Board of Regents on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by regent Ward Connerly to add an optional "multiracial" check box to UC's undergraduate student application. The 12-1 vote by the regents' educational policy committee means the proposal will not advance to the full board, despite a highly personal, often emotional appeal for its passage from Connerly during the first day of a two-day meeting at UCLA.

Adding a multiracial category to the 2000 census is unlikely to affect the way most black or white Americans identify themselves, but it could reduce the number of respondents who choose other racial categories, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The creation of a mixed-race category has been proposed by multiracial advocacy groups who contend that existing classifications force them to make a choice between the racial identities of their parents.