Boston judge halts Trump’s push for college admissions data in temporary ruling
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A US judge in Boston on Friday temporarily restrained the President Donald Trump from ordering colleges to collect and turn over detailed data on race and admissions to granting a short-term reprieve to 17 Democratic attorneys general who sued to block the policy from taking effect.
U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the administration from immediately requesting detailed information from colleges and universities across the United States.
Trump announced the new effort last August as part of a broader effort by the administration to ensure that universities do not use race as a factor in admissions, in line with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision blocking so-called “race-conscious” admissions.
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Supreme Court building in Washington DC (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The decision forced many universities to fundamentally change their admissions processes for the first time in decades. But Trump and some Republicans have criticized what they say is a lack of compliance with the order, arguing that many universities have failed to adjust their admissions processes quickly enough or fully to comply.
Trump’s August memo instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require universities to report more data to the federal government “to ensure adequate transparency in admissions.”
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Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a press conference at Massapequa High School on May 30, 2025. (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
As part of this effort, all universities receiving federal funding were ordered to submit race and gender admissions data going back years to the Department of Education, as well as information on the total undergraduate applicant pool and enrollment size.
But Democratic attorneys general who sued to block the policy argued this week that they were not given enough time to compile the massive amounts of data — nearly seven years’ worth — that the administration needed.
They also argued that this effort by the Trump administration was an attempt to turn the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Department of Education’s primary statistical agency, into “a mechanism for enforcing the law and advancing partisan policy goals.”
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U.S. Department of Education headquarters building in Washington, D.C. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)
Judge Saylor’s temporary order extends the deadline an additional 12 days, until March 25, to allow the court to consider the lawsuit filed by the states and ensure “the orderly resolution of the issues,” according to the brief order.
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It was not immediately clear whether the Trump administration would appeal the decision. Neither the Department of Justice nor the Department of Education immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
