California sues over Trump demand for college admissions data based on race

Sharon Bernstein, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 11, 2026

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The Trump administration’s 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.

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.

The new policy came after President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum 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.

“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights, the persistent lack of available data — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,” Trump said in his Aug. 7 memorandum.

But California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the demand would make a previously reliable source of data into a “partisan bludgeon.”

“The Trump Administration is on a fishing expedition — demanding unprecedented amounts of data from our colleges and universities under the guise of enforcing civil rights law,” Bonta said in a news release on Monday.

The data collection demand is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law, the attorney general said.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue the administration ignored numerous letters raising concerns about the proposed policy, which they said posed “significant data control and privacy issues.” The final decision was issued three days after the public comment period closed, indicating those concerns were not seriously considered, the lawsuit said.

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.

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.

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