Several states sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over its mandate that colleges share with the federal government detailed student and admissions data, which the government has said is meant to ensure schools are not using racial preferences.
The Trump administration announced in August that schools would be required to report disaggregated data on the race, gender, test scores and grade point averages of applicants. Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, argued that the new requirements were a way to scrutinize whether colleges were abiding by a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed race-conscious admissions.
The states say the effort has been rushed into place to target diversity efforts and creates an undue burden on schools. In the lawsuit on Wednesday, filed by the attorneys general of 17 mostly left-leaning states, including New York and California, the states argue that the Trump administration was attempting to turn the National Center for Education Statistics, a nonpartisan agency, into a “mechanism for law enforcement and the furthering of partisan policy aims.”
“Once again, this administration is trying to stretch the federal government’s authority to serve its own political agenda,” Leticia James, New York’s attorney general, said in a statement. “Colleges and universities should not be forced to turn over massive amounts of sensitive student data to satisfy another witch hunt.”
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. In announcing the change, Ms. McMahon had said it was meant to further transparency.
“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 said.
In recent decades, many colleges and universities have emphasized the importance of racially diverse classes. Educators had argued that learning alongside students from different racial and ethnic groups was helpful for society and the business world, among other benefits.
Conservative groups have argued that preferences for underrepresented groups, including Black and Latino students, harmed white and Asian applicants who they say were put at a disadvantage when applying to the nation’s most competitive schools.
After the 2023 Supreme Court decision in the case known as Students for Fair Admissions, which curtailed the use of race but still allowed for it to be considered in some instances, universities had said they remained committed to diversity. Many attempted to build diverse classes without violating the court ruling, and, more recently, the Trump administration’s narrow interpretation of the decision.
In its August announcement, the Trump administration said it would be on the lookout for “hidden racial proxies” that schools might use to seek out minority applicants and had taken to looking for economic diversity.
Michael C. Bender contributed reporting.
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
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