States sue the Trump administration to challenge policy requiring colleges to collect race data

BOSTON (AP) — A coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a Trump administration policy that requires higher education institutions to collect data showing they aren’t considering race in admissions.

President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race, which he views as illegal discrimination.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of affirmative action in admissions but said colleges may still consider how race has shaped students’ lives if applicants share that information in their admissions 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 lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston.

Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson, defended the data collection.

“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 new policy is similar to parts of recent settlement agreements the government negotiated with Brown University and Columbia University, restoring their federal research money. The universities agreed to give the government data on the race, grade-point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to release admissions statistics to the public.

The memo directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require colleges to report more data “to provide adequate transparency into admissions.” The National Center for Education Statistics will collect new data, including the race and sex of colleges’ applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. McMahon said the data, which is due by March 18, must be disaggregated by race and sex and retroactively reported for the past seven years.

If colleges fail to submit timely, complete and accurate data, McMahon can take action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which outlines requirements for colleges receiving federal financial aid for students, according to the memo.

Campbell argues the survey is rushed 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 government uses the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, to gather information from thousands of colleges and universities that receive federal aid. The coalition also argues that the new data collection demands jeopardize 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.