Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Efforts Requiring Colleges Prove Race Is No Longer A Requirement In Admissions – AfroTech
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction that will impact the Trump administration’s efforts targeting race in college admissions.
In August 2025, Trump signed a presidential memorandum titled “Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions.” It required colleges and universities receiving federal funding to collect data to validate that race was no longer considered in admissions, according to The Associated Press.
“American taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent,” Ellen Keast, a Department of Education spokesperson, said in a statement. “The Department’s efforts will expand an existing transparency tool to show how universities are taking race into consideration in admissions. What exactly are State AGs trying to shield universities from?”
The presidential memorandum was issued to uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling rejecting affirmative action in college admissions, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. The Trump administration believes some higher education institutions were still using “diversity statements” and other “overt and hidden racial proxies,” according to the memorandum.
Trump’s new policy prompted a lawsuit filed March 11 in Boston by 17 Democratic state attorneys general who opposed it, The Associated Press reported.
“Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the Administration’s new [Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System] IPEDS demands for in-depth information about individual students,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit, per the outlet.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement, according to The Associated Press:
“There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request.”
On April 3, U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV temporarily blocked Trump’s presidential memorandum. Saylor believes the administration likely has the right to collect the data but described the order’s tight deadline as “rushed and chaotic,” Fox News reported.
“The 120-day deadline imposed by the President led directly to the failure of NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) to engage meaningfully with the institutions during the notice-and-comment process to address the multitude of problems presented by the new requirements,” he wrote, according to Huff Post.
Saylor also stated, per Fox News:
“Plaintiffs have established, based on the record before the Court, that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the agency action was ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not otherwise in accordance with the law. Furthermore, and notwithstanding the contention of the government, plaintiffs have established that immediate irreparable harm will result if the injunction does not issue. And they have likewise established that the balance of equities and the public interest favor preliminary injunctive relief. Accordingly, the motion for a preliminary injunction will be granted.”
At the time of this writing, Saylor’s decision will affect only public universities in the 17 plaintiff states, the outlet noted.
