17 States Challenge Trump’s College Race Data Collection Requirements

Seventeen Democratic state attorneys general have filed a federal lawsuit opposing a Trump administration mandate requiring colleges to provide detailed racial data about their admissions processes. The policy stems from concerns about potential illegal discrimination in college admissions following the Supreme Court's 2023 affirmative action ruling.

A group of 17 Democratic state attorneys general launched legal action Wednesday against the Trump administration’s new mandate forcing higher education institutions to provide detailed information demonstrating they don’t factor race into their admissions decisions.

The directive came after President Trump expressed concerns in August that universities might be using personal essays and other indirect methods to consider race in admissions, which he considers unlawful discrimination.

The 2023 Supreme Court decision ended affirmative action programs in college admissions, though it permitted schools to consider how racial experiences have influenced students’ lives when applicants discuss such experiences in their application essays.

“This Administration’s unlawful and haphazard actions are threatening the well-being of Massachusetts students and the prosperity of our colleges and universities,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement. “There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request.”

The legal challenge was submitted to federal court in Boston.

Education Department spokesperson Ellen Keast stood behind the information gathering effort.

“American taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent,” Keast said in a statement. “The Department’s efforts will expand an existing transparency tool to show how universities are taking race into consideration in admissions. What exactly are State AGs trying to shield universities from?”

The current directive mirrors aspects of recent settlement deals the federal government reached with Brown University and Columbia University, which restored their federal research funding. Both institutions committed to providing government officials with demographic information, academic performance metrics, and test scores for applicants, accepted students, and enrolled students. The schools also consented to government audits and public release of admissions statistics.

The directive instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to mandate additional reporting from colleges “to provide adequate transparency into admissions.” The National Center for Education Statistics will gather expanded information, including demographic and gender breakdowns of college applicants, accepted students, and enrolled students. McMahon specified that this information, required by March 18, must be separated by race and gender and provided retroactively for seven years.

Colleges that don’t provide timely, complete, and accurate information could face action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which establishes requirements for institutions receiving federal student financial aid, the memo states.

Campbell contends the survey timeline is unrealistic and “leaves institutions vulnerable to inadvertent errors and unreliable data that could lead to cost penalties and baseless investigations into their practices and that jeopardizes student privacy and could lead to individuals being easily identified.”

The federal government utilizes the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, known as IPEDS, to collect information from thousands of colleges and universities receiving federal assistance. The coalition also maintains that the expanded data requirements threaten student privacy.

“Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the Administration’s new IPEDS demands for in-depth information about individual students,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit.