Terry Ao Minnis is the senior director of the census and voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), and a left-of-center activist on voting issues and the U.S. Census. At AAJC, Minnis directs programs relating to the U.S. Census and voting rights. She was part of the litigation team in LUPE v. Ross, a federal lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s attempt to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 U.S. Census. ¹

Education and Background

Minnis received her law degree from American University Washington College of Law and her bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago. ²

At Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Asian American Justice Center, Minnis directs programs relating to the U.S. Census and voting rights. She was part of the litigation team in LUPE v. Ross, a federal lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s attempt to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 U.S. Census. ³

Minnis also led AAJC’s campaign to support reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 and signed Supreme Court amicus briefs supporting existing “preclearance” rules in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Court ultimately invalidated provisions of the Voting Rights Act that required certain states to obtain preclearance from the federal government before altering election practices. Minnis was appointed to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Elections in 2020, and was named one of the four “Valiant Women of the Vote” by the National Women’s History Alliance in 2020. She was named one of 100 “Sisters of Suffrage” by the National Organization for Women as part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th amendment. ⁴

Minnis is co-chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force. In addition, she was a member of the U.S Department of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee from 2002 through 2011 and the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations from 2013 through 2019. ⁵

Minnis is a senior fellow and consultant for the Election Program of the Democracy Fund, where she advises staff on emerging trends and policy relating to voting. ⁶

Activism on 2020 Census and Elections

Minnis opposed efforts by the Trump administration to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census, calling it “an untested question that has not been vetted through the proper scientific rigors as other questions on the census have been.” Minnis argued that immigrants “will be reluctant to participate in a decennial census that asks about citizenship,” causing participation rates to plummet, and that the proposed question raised concerns “about the confidentiality of their personal information and how government authorities may use that information.” ⁷ The Supreme Court eventually blocked the citizenship question in 2019. ⁸

After it was completed, Minnis criticized the Trump administration’s management of the 2020 Census, which unfolded in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires in the West, and an unusually active hurricane season. Minnis accused the administration of “political interference” and said that underreporting of minorities was caused by “fear … or sheer confusion about, ‘Who is at my door? … Should I not open my door because of COVID? Should I not open my door because of the government?’” ⁹

Minnis also predicted that Asian-Americans would be undercounted in the 2020 Census and called for revisions to the ethnic and racial classifications that lump persons of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indian subcontinent descent into one racial category. Minnis claimed that aggregation of these racial classifications “perpetuate the persistent and pernicious myth that all Asian Americans are affluent and well-educated—by not allowing for a deeper dive into the differences within subgroups.” ¹⁰

Ultimately, analyses determined that Asian-Americans were the most overcounted group in the 2020 Census, by 2.6 percent. Minnis countered that “you need lower level geography to understand if there was an undercount or if certain communities fared better than others.” ¹¹

Minnis also advocated for the expansion of foreign-language ballots in the 2020 elections, stating that AAJC was “eager to work with local jurisdictions to find innovative ways to improve bilingual voter access.” ¹²

1. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/bio/terry-ao-minnis
2. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/bio/terry-ao-minnis
3. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/bio/terry-ao-minnis
4. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/bio/terry-ao-minnis
5. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/bio/terry-ao-minnis
6. “Terry Ao Minnis.” Governing. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.governing.com/authors/terry-ao-minnis.html
7. Terry Ao Minnis. “Don’t Count Us Out of the Fight.” Medium.com. June 5, 2018. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://medium.com/advancing-justice-aajc/dont-count-us-out-of-the-fight-a0f970cf9585
8. Amy Howe. “Trump administration ends effort to include citizenship question on 2020 census.” Scotusblog. July 11, 2019. Accessed July 30, 2022. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/07/trump-administration-ends-effort-to-include-citizenship-question-on-2020-census/
9. Mike Schneider. “Census shows US is diversifying, white population shrinking.” Associated Press. August 12, 2021. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://wnyt.com/archive/census-shows-us-is-diversifying-white-population-shrinking/
10. “Feds taking first steps toward revising race, ethnic terms.” Associated Press. June 16, 2022. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://wtop.com/lifestyle/2022/06/feds-taking-first-steps-toward-revising-race-ethnic-terms/
11. Terry Tang and Mike Schneider. “Experts: Census overcounted Asians.” Associated Press. April 13, 2022. https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/experts-census-overcounted-asians/article_4a35e6d3-14bd-59e8-9f21-0922b557e2b7.html
12. “Asian American Communities Hail the Expansion Of Language Access For Limited English Proficient Voters.” Asian Americans Advancing Justice. December 9, 2021. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/press-release/asian-american-communities-hail-expansion-language-access-limited-english-proficient