and Shipping
Articles, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 15-10: Idem for Administrative Asst to SA, 8
Dec 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race" Entries on
Enlistment Contracts and Shipping Articles, OSA
291.2.]

The board's rulings, unscientific and open to all sorts of legal
complications, could only be stopgap measures, and when on 4 January
1950 the Army again requested clarification of the racial categories,
the board quickly responded. Although it continued to defend the use
of racial categories, it tried to soften the ruling by stating that an
applicant's declaration of race should be accepted, subject to
"sufficient justification" from the applicant when his declaration
created "reason to doubt." It was 5 April before the board's new
chairman, J. Thomas Schneider,[15-11] issued a revised directive to
this effect.[15-12]

[Footnote 15-11: Schneider succeeded Thomas Reid as
chairman on 2 February 1950.]

[Footnote 15-12: Memo, Chmn, PPB, for SA et al., 5 Apr
50, sub: Policy Regarding "Race" on Enlistment
Contracts and Shipping Articles, PPB 291.2.]

The board's decision to accept an applicant's declaration was simply a
return to the reasonable and practical method the Selective Service
had been using for some time. But adopting the vague qualification
"sufficient justification" invited further complaints. When the
services finally translated the board's directive into a new
regulation, the role of the applicant in deciding his racial identity
was practically abolished. In the Army and the Air Force, for (p. 384)
example, recruiters had to submit all unresolved identity cases to the
highest local commander, whose decision, supposedly based on available
documentary evidence and answers to the questions first suggested by
Congressman Holifield, was final. Further, the Army and the Air Force
decided that "no enlistment would be accomplished" until racial
identity was decided to the satisfaction of both the applicant and the
service.[15-13] The Navy adopted a similar procedure when it placed
the board's directive in effect.[15-14] The new regulation promised
little comfort for young Americans of racially mixed parentage and
even less for the services. Contrary to the intent of the Personnel
Policy Board, its directive once again placed th