Overview:
The move follows the Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action and aims to ensure compliance with federal law
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum requiring universities to collect detailed admissions data to prove they are not shaping student bodies along racial lines, according to the White House. The order marks the administration’s latest step in dismantling affirmative action policies in higher education.
The directive, carried out by U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, instructs the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to require institutions to report admissions data disaggregated by race and sex for applicants, admitted students, and enrolled students at both undergraduate and select graduate and professional levels. Reports will also include academic measures such as standardized test scores, GPAs, and other applicant characteristics.
McMahon also ordered NCES to create a new audit process to ensure the accuracy and consistency of reporting. “Following the revelations of rampant racial preferencing in college admissions exposed by SFFA v. Harvard, the Trump Administration is now standardizing reporting from colleges and universities to provide full transparency into their admissions practices,” McMahon said. “We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments. The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.”
The White House argues the move is necessary to enforce compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down the use of race in admissions under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Administration officials contend that some universities have skirted the ruling by relying on “diversity statements” that reveal applicants’ race.
But the plan is facing pushback from higher education groups. Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents 1,600 member schools, said collecting such data could itself be illegal under the Supreme Court’s decision. “You can’t consider race in admissions, so schools don’t collect data on race from applicants,” Fansmith said. “This seems to be an effort to get institutions to provide information that we don’t have and that we can’t collect.”
A senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected that argument, saying the Court’s ruling does not prohibit the collection of demographic data as long as it is not used in admissions decisions. The official said the administration expects universities to block admissions officers from accessing any data on the race of individual applicants.
Until now, federal data collection through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) focused only on the racial composition of enrolled students. The new reporting requirements, the Department of Education states, will enable the public to evaluate whether institutions are admitting students based solely on merit, rather than on race.
