US judge temporarily blocks Trump effort to secure race data from colleges

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, March 13 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from requiring universities to collect and turn over data by next week to prove they are no longer considering race as an admissions factor.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston issued a temporary restraining order at the request of 17 Democratic state attorneys, who sued over a newly-added component of mandatory, annual surveys administered by the U.S. Department of Education that are used to gather information from universities.

Schools that participate in federal student financial programs were asked to provide admissions-related data on the race and sex of students, which the department planned to use to track their compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending affirmative action in higher education.

The judge, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, noted that universities and colleges nationwide faced a looming Wednesday deadline to complete the survey. He extended that deadline through March 25 to provide time to hear the states’ case and provide for an “orderly resolution of the issues.”

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The data at issue would be gathered through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System surveys, which since 1986 have been used by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics to collect information from universities on matters like finances, admissions and outcomes.

The survey was altered at the direction of Trump, who in an August memorandum cited a lack of data to assess whether race remained an admissions factor after the Supreme Court’s decision given the “rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies.”

Following the memo, Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon announced that institutions of higher education would need to report data disaggregated by race and sex relating to the undergraduate applicant pool and enrollment.

The Office of Management and Budget subsequently in December finalized the new requirements, which sought data from the 2025-2026 academic year and six prior years.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alistair Bell)