Trump orders universities to disclose admissions data on race

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Thursday requiring higher education institutions to submit expanded admissions data to the Department of Education, aimed at detecting continued use of racial preferences after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision against affirmative action.

New requirements: The memo directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to revamp the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the federal database that tracks college information, to collect detailed admissions data from institutions receiving federal financial assistance. “The lack of available admissions data from universities — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in admissions decisions in practice,” it claims. With this, universities must now report information broken down by race and sex for their applicant pools, admitted students and enrolled students. This includes standardized test scores, GPAs and other academic achievements.

Following the memo’s release, McMahon directed the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to begin collecting the additional data, emphasizing that “it should not take years of legal proceedings, and millions of dollars in litigation fees, to elicit data from taxpayer-funded institutions that identifies whether they are discriminating against hard working American applicants.” She also ordered the NCES to develop a “rigorous audit process” to ensure data accuracy. Institutions that fail to comply risk losing federal funding.

Zoom in: The move builds on the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court ruling that banned race-conscious admissions after revealing “extreme racial preferencing” against Asian American applicants. Conservative groups, led by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), had argued that subjective admissions criteria discriminated against high-performing Asian students, similar to historical discrimination against Jewish applicants in the early 20th century. However, critics argue that Asians are merely being used as political pawns in such lawsuits.

The administration recently secured settlements with Columbia University and Brown University requiring both schools to report race, test scores and grades of all applicants, with agreements prohibiting the use of diversity statements to introduce racial considerations.

The big picture: McMahon has emphasized the administration’s commitment to merit-based admissions, saying, “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,” adding that they “will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.” However, some believe the emphasis on test scores and grades could create a quota system for white and rich students, a concern reflecting the reality that families in the highest income brackets are seven times more likely to score 1300 or higher on the SAT than the poorest families.

Some also fear the administration will use unfavorable data as justification to strip university funding, following the president’s pattern of pausing billions to institutions over alleged antisemitism and diversity practices. Advocates worry this represents another avenue for the administration to pressure universities into compliance with its policies.