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The Trump administration\u2019s demand that colleges and universities provide detailed admissions data broken down by race, gender and other characteristics was challenged Monday in federal court by a coalition of states led by Massachusetts and California.<\/p>\n
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts, Democratic attorneys general from 17 states sued the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as their leaders, arguing the new policy demanding the information was not properly vetted or analyzed before it was announced late last year.<\/p>\n
The new policy came after President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum<\/a> last August directing the agencies to develop a plan to investigate whether colleges were secretly considering race in admissions after affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students\u2019 civil rights, the persistent lack of available data \u2014 paired with the rampant use of \u2018diversity statements\u2019 and other overt and hidden racial proxies \u2014 continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,\u201d Trump said in his Aug. 7 memorandum.<\/p>\n But California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the demand would make a previously reliable source of data into a \u201cpartisan bludgeon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump Administration is on a fishing expedition \u2014 demanding unprecedented amounts of data from our colleges and universities under the guise of enforcing civil rights law,\u201d Bonta said in a news release on Monday.<\/p>\n The data collection demand is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law, the attorney general said.<\/p>\n In the lawsuit,<\/a> the attorneys general argue the administration ignored numerous letters raising concerns about the proposed policy, which they said posed \u201csignificant data control and privacy issues.\u201d The final decision was issued three days after the public comment period closed, indicating those concerns were not seriously considered, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n The suit alleges several violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies enact new policies, and asks the court to bar the policy from being implemented.<\/p>\n In addition to Massachusetts and California, participating states include Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n
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