17 States Sue Over the Education Department's Demand for Race-Coded College Admissions Data

Seventeen Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration on March 11, 2026, over a new Education Department data collection, the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, which requires colleges to report admissions and student data broken down by race and other characteristics. The states argue the department imposed the requirement without the process federal law requires and that the collection threatens student privacy. The Association of American Universities separately sought to intervene, describing the rollout as rushed.

The dispute concerns how far an agency may expand a mandatory reporting regime by administrative action, and what happens to individual-level student records once collected. The states have characterized the collection as aimed at policing campus admissions practices rather than at consumer information.

On April 6, 2026, a federal judge blocked the department from enforcing the admissions-data demand in the 17 plaintiff states.