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. Trump administration policy This requires higher education institutions to collect data showing that they do not consider race in admissions.
President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after voicing concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race in what he viewed as illegal discrimination.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of this substance. affirmative action in admissions But if applicants share this information in their admissions essays, those colleges can still consider how race shapes students’ lives.
“This Administration’s illegal and indiscriminate actions threaten the well-being of Massachusetts students and the well-being of our colleges and universities,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement. “There is no way that institutions can reasonably submit accurate data within the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential loss of funding, and unfounded investigations if they do not comply with the Administration’s request.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston.
Education Department spokeswoman Ellen Keast defended the data collection.
“American taxpayers invest over $100 billion in higher education each year and deserve transparency about how their dollars are spent,” Keast said in a statement. “The department’s efforts will expand an existing transparency tool to show how universities consider race in admissions. What exactly are state AGs trying to protect universities from?”
The new policy is similar to parts of the recently implemented policy compromise agreements the government negotiated Brown University And Columbia UniversityThey get their federal research money back. Universities agreed to provide the government with data on the race, GPA and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to publicly publish admissions statistics.
The statement instructs Education Minister Linda McMahon to require universities to report more data “to ensure adequate transparency in admissions.” The National Center for Education Statistics will collect new data, including the race and gender of college applicants, accepted students and enrolled students. McMahon said the data, which must be submitted by March 18, must be disaggregated by race and gender and reported retrospectively for the past seven years.
If colleges fail to submit timely, complete and accurate data, McMahon may take action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which establishes requirements for colleges to receive federal financial aid for students, according to the memo.
Campbell argues that the survey was rushed and “left institutions vulnerable to unintentional errors and unreliable data that could lead to cost penalties and unfounded investigations into their practices, jeopardize student privacy, and lead to easy identification of individuals.”
The government uses the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, to collect information from thousands of colleges and universities that receive federal aid. The coalition also argues that new data collection requests jeopardize student privacy.
“Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, and these obligations are put at risk by the Administration’s new IPEDS requests to provide in-depth information about individual students,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit. he wrote.
