The Trump administration has given up too quickly on its plans to add a question about citizenship to the decennial census. Still, it was disgraceful that Chief Justice John Roberts and four of Roberts’ colleagues put the question in jeopardy in the first place.

It defies belief that the Supreme Court could rule a question about citizenship ineligible. The whole point of a census is to catalog the nation’s inhabitants. Surely it is within reason that the government would want to know how many citizens there are, and how many noncitizen residents. Indeed, it is a question that has been asked on almost every census in the nation’s history. It also is important because ongoing litigation is trying to determine whether noncitizens or illegal immigrants should be included in the arithmetic governing the apportionment of congressional seats.