A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order demanding colleges nationwide to submit data \u2014 including student grade-point averages and test scores \u2014 to prove they don\u2019t illegally consider race in admissions. <\/p>\n
The ruling came two days after California and 16 other Democratic states sued to reverse the federal policy.<\/p>\n
Boston-based federal district court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV gave schools, including University of California and California State University campuses, a week-long extension on a March 18 deadline to submit the data. This will allow time for federal attorneys and state officials to prepare arguments for a March 24 hearing at which a judge will decide whether to further block the data submission mandate. <\/p>\n
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is among the state attorneys general who filed the suit Wednesday against a Department of Education rule that asks colleges to submit \u201cthe race and sex of colleges\u2019 applicants, admitted students and enrolled students.\u201d Bonta called the requirement a \u201cfishing expedition\u201d that is \u201cdemanding unprecedented amounts of data from our colleges and universities under the guise of enforcing civil rights law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the same administration, I\u2019ll remind you, that gutted the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office of Civil Rights, leaving thousands of civil rights complaints and investigations in limbo,\u201d Bonta said in a statement. \u201cThis latest sham demand threatens to turn a reliable tool into a partisan bludgeon. California is committed to following the law \u2014 and we\u2019re going to court to make sure the Trump administration does the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policy, announced in August, requires schools to submit disaggregated data on gender, race, grade-point averages and test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students by March 18. Under Friday\u2019s court order, the deadline is extended to March 25.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is requesting seven years of data and says it wants schools to prove they are not illegally considering race as a factor in admissions \u2014 a practice struck down nationally after a 2023 Supreme Court case involving Harvard. In that case, justices said colleges may still consider how race has shaped students\u2019 lives if applicants share that information in their admissions essays.<\/p>\n
California and Democratic states that filed the suit in a Boston federal court say in their complaint that the government is attempting to turn the nonpartisan National Center for Education Statistics into a \u201cmechanism for law enforcement and the furthering of partisan policy aims.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has accused numerous elite institutions, including the UC system, of breaking the law by using race in admissions and discriminating against white and Asian American students. This year, it sued UCLA in federal court, alleging that the David Geffen School of Medicine illegally practices affirmative action. UC and UCLA have said they follow California state law, which has banned considering race as a factor in admissions since 1997.<\/p>\n
President Trump ordered the new policy last summer after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race, which he views as illegal discrimination. <\/p>\n
Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson, defended the data collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent,\u201d Keast said in a statement. \u201cThe Department\u2019s 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The government made a similar ask of UC in August when it proposed a $1.2-billion settlement fine <\/a>to resolve allegations of federal civil rights law violations at UCLA after cutting off more than half a billion dollars in federal medical, science, and energy research funding. <\/p>\n UC President James B. Milliken said the university will not pay the fine but<\/a> is open to talks with the Trump administration. No agreement has been reached, although faculty and union-led lawsuits<\/a> resulted in research funding being restored and strict limits on the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to reshape UC policies and culture through threats of funding cuts.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s August memo on race in admissions directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require colleges to report more data \u201cto provide adequate transparency into admissions\u201d to the National Center for Education Statistics. After a public comment period \u2014 in which California and other Democrat-led states submitted notices opposing the rule \u2014 the Department of Education finalized the reporting requirement on Dec. 18.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell, who co-led the suit along with Bonta, said in a statement that \u201cthere is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government\u2019s 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\u2019s request.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 the new data collection demands jeopardize student privacy.<\/p>\n \u201cMany institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the administration\u2019s new IPEDS demands for in-depth information about individual students,\u201d the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit. <\/p>\n Casey writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order demanding colleges nationwide to submit data \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":653934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[16291,133245,1582,276,2871,12920,277322,454,12644,2961,224,5337,6176,11645,11004,15689,277323,277321,4280],"class_list":["post-653933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-admission","tag-applicant","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-college","tag-datum","tag-education-rule","tag-government","tag-information","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-race","tag-school","tag-statement","tag-student","tag-test-score","tag-trump-administration-policy","tag-university"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116224878872804772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}