<!-- Yahoo TimeStamp: 952761102 --> <b>Saturday March 11 2:49 AM ET</b> WASHINGTON (AP) - The growing diversity of the American population is prompting the Clinton administration to release new guidelines for federal agencies as the Census Bureau prepares to mail out forms offering people a chance to say if they are of more than one race.<p>The guidelines, issued Friday by the Office of Management and Budget, allow for more specific racial combinations to be counted when results from the 2000 census are released, changing the way demographic data about the country is kept.<p>For the first time, this year's census forms allow respondents to mark one or more of 14 boxes representing six races and subcategories or ``some other race.'' For instance, in the last census, someone who was of both black and white ancestry could only check off only one choice.<p>In all, as many as 63 racial combinations are possible, and the Census Bureau will release data for each of those categories, said Nancy Gordon, the agency's associate director for demographic programs.<p>The guidelines also revise the way statistics are kept for purposes of civil rights monitoring and enforcement, said Sally Katzen, counselor to the OMB director.<p>For that purpose, OMB added new multi-race categories in addition to the standard single-race categories of American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White.<p>The new multi-race categories for purposes of civil rights monitoring and enforcement are: American Indian or Alaska Native and White; Asian and White; Black or African American and White; American Indian or Alaska Native and Black or African American.<p>``We anticipate that most of the people who check off more than one race will check off one of these categories,'' Katzen said when asked why those specific combinations were selected.<p>The guidelines also provide for the collection of information on any multiple race combinations that comprise more than 1 percent of the population of interest, the report said.<p>If an individual who is white and of one minority race is involved in a civil rights enforcement case, that individual will be allocated to the minority race. A person of two or more minority races and involved in an enforcement case would be allocated to the race that is allegedly discriminated against.<p>Finally, if a person of two or more minority races is involved in a civil rights case based on a pattern of discrimination, the enforcement agency ``will conduct a thorough analysis of effects on each minority group alleged to be affected by the pattern of discrimination,'' an OMB statement said.<p>It's impossible to speculate on how the new groupings will affect civil and voting rights enforcement until data from the 2000 census is released next year, said Anita Hodgkiss, deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights.<p>Overall, the guidelines allow people to be counted once. ``No individual is counted twice, nor is any individual counted as a fraction,'' Katzen said.<p>The administration estimated about 2 percent of the population would check off that they are of more than one race.