The “One-Drop Rule”: Does Hypodescent Still Operate for Multiracial Americans?

Mary E. Campbell, University of Wisconsin at Madison

The “one-drop rule” has been used in legal and popular settings to classify all individuals with any African American ancestry as Black. This rule might, however, be less influential for multiracial Americans today than it has been in the past. Using the May 1995 Current Population Survey Supplement and the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, I investigate the salience of the one-drop rule for multiracial Americans with some African American ancestry who are forced to choose a single race on a survey. I find that the power of the one-drop rule varies significantly by age, region, and educational attainment. The salience of the one-drop rule varies most, however, across different ancestry groups, with those who choose a “Black and American Indian” identity most likely to follow the one-drop rule, and those who choose a “Black and Asian” identity least likely to select an African American monoracial identity.