Judge Blocks Trump Admin’s Bid to Compel Race Data From Universities

The Trump administration cannot force public universities in 17 US states to hand over sweeping amounts of data to examine whether they have ceased considering race as an admissions factor, a federal judge has ruled.

 

US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston issued a preliminary injunction at the request of those states’ Democratic attorneys general, who are suing over a new data reporting requirement adopted by the Department of Education through a survey used to gather information from colleges.

 

The department sought seven years of admissions data on the race and sex of students to track compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending affirmative action in higher education.

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James hailed the ruling, saying in a statement that “schools should not have to scramble to produce years of sensitive information to satisfy an arbitrary and unlawful demand.”

 

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

 

The states, which also include California and Massachusetts, sued last month, arguing that the survey’s rushed implementation left universities vulnerable to inadvertent errors that could expose them to penalties and investigations into their practices.

 

The department requested the data through an Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey created at the direction of President Donald Trump, a Republican. In an August memorandum, he cited a lack of data to assess whether race remained an admissions factor, given the “rampant use” by universities of what he called “hidden racial proxies”.

 

Saylor ruled that the Education Department had the statutory authority to seek such data, but said the “rushed and chaotic manner” in which it adopted the new requirements meant it failed to properly engage with universities about foreseeable problems.

 

Such problems were compounded by the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department, leaving few employees in its National Center for Education Statistics to manage the surveys following job cuts, the judge said.

 

After the states sued, Saylor, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, issued temporary restraining orders that extended until Monday the deadline for their schools to complete the survey while he considered the case.

 

On Tuesday, he issued an order similarly extending the deadline for dozens of other public and private universities while he considers whether they too deserve an injunction.

 

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