John H. Thompson abruptly resigned as director of the U.S. Census Bureau last Tuesday, amid concerns about the level of funding for the 2020 census.

Margo Anderson is Distinguished Professor of History and Urban Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and is widely regarded as a major authority on the census, both inside and outside academia. She is available to discuss the political and social importance of the census, and the possible fallout from Thompson’s departure.

Anderson is the author of the acclaimed “The American Census: A Social History” (Yale University Press), now in its second edition.

She has occasionally blogged about the census. Prior to the 2016 election she wrote, “[T]he U.S. has always had a “politics of population” that periodically draws the census, which is supposed to be a nonpartisan scientific enterprise, into the contentious political struggles of the day.”

She has observed that the census numbers “get written into the funding formulas, shape legislative districts, and become the subject of countless media stories, the census triggers not only commemoration, but also political action.”

Anderson’s professional web site: https://uwm.edu/history/people/anderson-margo/