Trump administration can't make colleges provide race-related data, judge rules
By Nate Raymond
Published on April 4, 2026.
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration cannot force public universities in 17 U.S. states to provide race-related data to determine if they have ceased considering race as an admissions factor. The states, including California and Massachusetts, sued the Department of Education for the data, arguing the rushed implementation of the survey left universities vulnerable to inadvertent errors. The department requested the data through an Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey, created at the direction of President Donald Trump, citing a lack of data to assess whether race remains an admissions influence. New York Attorney General Letitia James praised the ruling, stating that schools should not have to produce years of sensitive information to satisfy an arbitrary demand.
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