A federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction on April 3, 2026, blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a new requirement that universities report race and gender data for all applicants, effectively pausing a policy that critics called a "fishing expedition" against diversity efforts.
In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said that while the federal government likely has the legal authority to collect admissions data, the specific rollout was "rushed and chaotic." He noted that the 120-day deadline prevented the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) from meaningfully addressing the "multitude of problems" raised by universities.
The preliminary injunction is not nationwide; it applies only to public universities within the 17 states involved in the lawsuit. Institutions outside these states or private colleges within them may still face different compliance timelines.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is one of the co-leaders of the lawsuit against the Trump administration's mandate to report race in admissions data.
The bigger picture:
The recent decision marks the latest escalation in a series of policy shifts that have reshaped the landscape of higher education. The first full year of enrollment data following the Supreme Court's decision to block the use of race in admissions revealed a stark "cascade effect": while Black student enrollment plummeted at "Ivy Plus" institutions, 83 percent of state flagships surprisingly saw gains. However, interpreting these shifts is becoming increasingly difficult as a rising number of applicants choose to "decline to state" their race.
This federal push for granular applicant data closely mirrors the anti-DEI blueprints led by states like Texas and Florida, where the elimination of identity-based scholarships set the stage for the current effort to overhaul institutional metrics. By pausing these mandates, the court has temporarily stalled a move that many stakeholders view as a calculated attempt to dismantle race-conscious reporting across the sector.
Friday's ruling likely won’t stop this trend, though it acknowledged that the "hasty and irresponsible" demand for seven years of retroactive, disaggregated data (including race and sex for all applicants, not just enrollees) risks invading student privacy and could lead to "baseless investigations." Based on the fact that the timeline is the primary reason for striking it down, it is likely the Trump Administration will continue to pursue the mandate under an extended deadline.
In addition to the speed of implementation, institution leaders had real concerns about student data privacy obligations and how the new mandates stand in stark contrast to the security they owe students.
“This Administration’s unlawful and haphazard actions are threatening the well-being of Massachusetts students and the prosperity of our colleges and universities,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who co-led the suit, said in a March 11 statement. “There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request.”
