Memo to OMB on Nonsub Change in compliance with EO 14168

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Washington, D.C. 20531

MEMORANDUM

TO: Office of the Chief Statistician

Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Kevin M. Scott, Ph.D.

Acting Director

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Shelley S. Hyland, Ph.D.

Senior Statistical Advisor

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Heather Brotsos

Deputy Director, Statistical Programs Division

Bureau of Justice Statistics

FROM: Rachel E. Morgan, Ph.D.

Chief, Victimization Statistics Unit

Bureau of Justice Statistics

SUBJECT: Non-substantive change request for the National Crime Victimization Survey School Crime Supplement (OMB Control No. 1121-0184)

DATE: March 3, 2025

This memo requests non-substantive changes to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) School Crime Supplement (SCS) which is approved through 11/30/2026 under OMB Control No. 1121-0184.¹ The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is proposing to revise questions using the term “gender” on the SCS per the Executive Order (EO) 14168 titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

Description of changes to SCS questions:

Three questions on the SCS instrument are impacted by EO 14168. As of January 31, 2025, leadership at the U.S. Census Bureau, who collects the SCS data for BJS, communicated to BJS that Census Field Representatives (FRs) were instructed to skip these questions and not read them to respondents. FRs were instructed to select “don’t know” as the response for all of these questions and enter the note “EO compliance” in the notes for the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) instrument.

As of March 1, 2025, these questions will be revised on the SCS CAPI instrument. Waiting until March 1^st mitigates additional confusion in the field, and also simplifies data processing and makes instrument testing at Census more streamlined since they test the instrument each month before it is deployed to the field.

The first question (G_BULLYING_GENDER) will be revised to include “sex” instead of “gender.”

Original question – G_BULLYING_GENDER

When you were bullied in school this year, did you ever think it was related to:

Your gender?

1. Yes

2. No

Revised question – G_BULLYING_SEX

When you were bullied in school this year, did you ever think it was related to:

Your sex, including being male or female?

1. Yes

2. No

The other two questions ask about hate-related words, which are tied to the categories outlined in the federal hate crime law (The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009). We propose adding language on “sex” as a perceived characteristic into the lead question on hate-related words (G_HATE_R) and a separate question on “sex” (G_HATE_SEX). We will remove the G_HATE_GENDER question.

Original question – G_HATE

During this school year, has anyone called you an insulting or bad name at school having to do with your race, religion, ethnic background or national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation? We call these hate-related words.

1. Yes

2. No

Revised question – G_HATE_R

During this school year, has anyone called you an insulting or bad name at school having to do with your race, religion, ethnic background or national origin, disability, sex – including being male or female, or sexual orientation? We call these hate-related words.

1. Yes

2. No

Remove question – G_HATE_GENDER

Your gender?

1. Yes

2. No

3. Don’t know

Revised question – G_HATE_SEX

Your sex, including being male or female?

1. Yes

2. No

3. Don’t know

The Census Bureau will revise training materials and other SCS resources to remove the term “gender” and references relevant to the gender identity questions.

Impact of these revisions

These proposed modification to the NCVS instrument are expected to have a negligible impact on burden, cost and on victimization estimates.

Attachments:

Attachment 1. Revised SCS instrument (OMB Control No. 1121-0184)

Attachment 2. Revised SCS-300 (Interviewer Self-Study)

1 A separate memo requesting non-substantive changes to the National Crime Victimization Survey, including the removal of the gender identity questions, is being submitted separately (OMB Control No. 1121-0111).