WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed a bill striking from federal laws certain outdated and offensive terms once used to describe minority groups.
Obama signed the bill Friday in the Oval Office, the White House says.
The bill, which passed the House and Senate without opposition, removes the terms “Negro,” ”Oriental” and other ethnic descriptions from federal laws.
A pair of federal laws dating to the 1970s that attempted to define minorities will strike the words “Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent.” They will be replaced with “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native.”
