Judge Halts Effort to Require Colleges to Show Data on Race-Neutral Admissions

A federal judge on April 3 blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a requirement that colleges submit admissions data to show they are not considering race, calling the rollout “rushed and chaotic.”

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the process was “arbitrary and capricious” and imposed significant burdens on institutions within a short 120-day timeline.

The lawsuit was filed by 17 states after President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Aug. 7, 2025, saying the administration wanted to investigate whether colleges were using race to determine admissions in violation of the Supreme Court ruling Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Trump’s order stated that the ruling found that race-based admissions violated students’ civil rights.

The plaintiffs contended the sheer amount of data requested—seven years—combined with an expedited timeline was a “considerable burden.”

The states will not have to provide the data while the lawsuit continues.

“This administration’s crusade against [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is dangerous,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the states involved in the lawsuit, said in a statement on April 3. “Students should not have to live in fear that their personal data will be handed over to the federal government, just as schools should not have to scramble to produce years of sensitive information to satisfy an arbitrary and unlawful demand.”

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Department of Education collects and analyzes admissions data in colleges.

The judge also commented on a dispute among the NCES staff available to do the work. The plaintiffs said the Department of Education is being dismantled, and the number of people working for NCES had dropped from 100 to just three. The Trump administration stated that there were 13 NCES employees, and the processing and data collection were all handled by contractors.

“American students and taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including confidence that they are recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists, and other critical workers vital to the next generations of American prosperity,” Trump’s executive order states. “Race-based admissions practices are not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.”

The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t respond by publication time to an email seeking comment from The Epoch Times.