The official who wanted to delete references to the greater likelihood that black and Hispanic drivers would be searched and subjected to force during a traffic stop has been rewarded with a promotion to a senior position at Homeland Security. Greenfeld, on the other hand, was "asked to move on" (that is, resign or be fired) just six months before he was scheduled to retire with full benefits. He'll probably be reassigned to a lesser position at the Bureau of Prisons.

The facts the administration wants to bury aren't pretty:

Once they were stopped, Hispanic drivers were searched or had their vehicles searched by the police 11.4 percent of the time and blacks 10.2 percent of the time, compared with 3.5 percent for white drivers. Blacks and Hispanics were also subjected to force or the threat of force more often than whites, and the police were much more likely to issue tickets to Hispanics rather than simply giving them a warning, the study found.

Congress mandated the study, and many in Congress are unhappy that the administration doesn't want the results made known.

Congressional opponents of racial profiling, who have criticized what they see as an ambivalent stance on the issue by the Bush administration, said they were frustrated to learn that the Justice Department had completed the Congressionally mandated study without announcing its findings or briefing members of Congress on it. They accused the Justice Department of effectively burying the findings to play down new data that would add grist to the debate over using racial and ethnic data in law enforcement and terrorism investigations.

Statisticians in the Bureau of Justice Statistics complain that political pressure to cook the books has heightened during the Bush administration. The statistician to whom Greenfeld's job was offered turned it down, perhaps fearing a similar assault upon his integrity if he accepted the position.

The report can be accessed here.