President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding schools prove that they are not conducting race-based admissions.
The Department of Education released a memo on Thursday detailing a new auditing process for college admissions in order to find any instances of civil rights violations.
In order to “promote transparency,” the Department of Education directed the National Center for Education Statistics to collect admissions data to show Americans that they are not conducting race-based preferences in their admissions process.
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The National Center for Education Statistics is responsible for collecting and publishing a variety of types of data from educational institutions in the U.S.
The move comes after the 2023 Supreme Court ruling on the student activist group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) case against Harvard that resulted in a rejection of the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Trump has cracked down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), prompting many universities to abandon DEI programs.
“As part of their regular data reporting process, institutions of higher education will now have to report data disaggregated by race and sex relating to their applicant pool, admitted cohort, and enrolled cohort at the undergraduate level and for specific graduate and professional programs. This data will include quantitative measures of applicants’ and admitted students’ academic achievements such as standardized test scores, GPAs and other applicant characteristics,” the memo stated.
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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said that the new initiative will require colleges to provide data directly to the department through an existing data system.
“Following the revelations of rampant racial preferencing in college admissions exposed by SFFA v. Harvard, the Trump Administration is now standardizing reporting from colleges and universities to provide full transparency into their admissions practices. It should not take years of legal proceedings, and millions of dollars in litigation fees, to elicit data from taxpayer-funded institutions that identifies whether they are discriminating against hard working American applicants. Going forward, universities will be required to provide this data directly to us through an existing data system,” she said.
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McMahon went on to add, “We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments. The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.”
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