Judge: Trump cannot force colleges to provide race data

The Trump administration cannot compel public universities in 17 US states to hand over extensive data to determine whether they have ceased considering race as a factor in student admissions, a federal judge ruled on Friday.

Federal judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston granted a preliminary injunction at the request of the states’ Democratic attorneys general, who filed the lawsuit in response to a new data requirement introduced by the Department of Education in a survey used to collect information from colleges.

The department requested student enrolment data covering the past seven years, broken down by race and gender, in order to monitor compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending the use of race as a factor in university admissions.

New York Attorney General Letitia James welcomed the decision, saying in a statement that ‘colleges and universities should not be forced to turn over massive amounts of sensitive student data to satisfy another witch hunt.’

(reuters, su)