Trump to make colleges prove they aren’t using race in admission ins latest anti-DEI order
President Donald Trump has signed a new directive forcing colleges and universities to turn over detailed data on the demographics of their incoming classes each year so Department of Education officials can scrutinize it to see if they are continuing banned programs meant to benefit racial minorities.
A fact sheet shared with The Independent by a White House official says Trump’s presidential memorandum to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon directs her to require “transparency” from higher education institutions receiving federal funds in the form of student aid with a “revamp” of the department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
That update to the decades-old system of surveys run by the department’s National Center foe Education Statistics will “expand the scope of reporting requirements” to include data on the racial makeup of each institution’s student body.
Trump is also ordering McMahon to “increase accuracy checks for data submitted by institutions” into the IPEDS system and “take remedial action” if the data submitted doesn’t come through on-time or if the department finds it “incomplete or inaccurate.”
According to the White House, the purpose for the expanded data collection is to “verify that their admissions do not involve unlawful discrimination” based on a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action in higher education and severely limited the circumstances under which institutions could consider race in making admissions decisions.
The administration’s fact sheet states that the lack of demographic data on admissions, plus institutions reliance on a provision in the court’s opinion allowing the use of essays that can include writing on how race has shaped a given applicant’s life along with “other overt and hidden racial proxies” in the admissions process “continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in admissions decisions in practice.”
“American students, parents, and taxpayers should have confidence that our Nation’s institutions of higher education are recruiting and training our next generations with fairness and integrity,” the White House said.
The demand for demographic data echoes agreements struck between the government and Brown University and Columbia University in recent weeks to restore federal grants awarded to both institutions.
Both schools agreed to provide data on the race, grade point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students to the government and the general public and allow a government audit to determine whether either school is engaging in discrimination against white applicants.
The memorandum is the latest in a series of actions Trump has taken to reverse decades-old programs meant to benefit racial minorities and ameliorate past discrimination.
Since taking office, the president has signed orders ending federal initiatives dating back to the Johnson Administration meant to prevent discrimination in federal hiring and contracting.
He has also ordered an end to all so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs because his administration considers them to constitute illegal racial discrimination against white people.
Trump appointees at the Department of Justice have also dismantled the department’s Civil Rights division and reoriented it towards the administration’s goal of ending what they see as reverse-discrimination against white Americans and religious discrimination against fundamentalist Christians.
