Attorney General Bonta: U.S. Department of Education’s Burdensome Data Collection Proposal Is Thinly-Veiled Pretense to Attack Lawful DEI Efforts

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today led a coalition of 18 attorneys general in opposing the Trump Administration’s proposal to require colleges and universities to submit data linking race to admissions, financial aid, and student performance. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) claims to be seeking data to assist it in enforcing Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race. Higher education institutions in California have not used race as a factor in admissions or financial aid since Proposition 209 passed in 1996. In the comment letter, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition argue that the proposed data collection would require these institutions to undertake new, costly, and burdensome data collection efforts on an unreasonable timeframe and is unlikely to yield high quality data or achieve ED’s stated goals. The coalition expresses concern that, instead of addressing purported racial discrimination in postsecondary admissions or ensuring compliance with Title VI, this data may instead be misused to improperly target colleges and universities with lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or who have ideological differences with the current administration. 

“The Trump Administration is demanding that colleges turn over massive amounts of student data, forcing institutions to scramble under costly, confusing, and unnecessary reporting burdens, all to support President Trump’s scheme to weaponize data against colleges and universities this Administration disfavors,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Data should empower colleges and universities to better serve their students, not be used as a weapon to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. We call on the U.S. Department of Education to abandon its pretense of accountability and rescind this burdensome proposal.”  

On August 7, 2025, President Trump directed ED to expand the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), an already-required survey, to address alleged concerns about race-conscious admissions practices in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) (SFFA v. Harvard). The new survey section will collect a broad range of data on undergraduate and graduate admissions, financial aid, and student outcomes, including data by race and sex on 1) the institutions’ applied, admitted, and enrolled cohorts, disaggregated by admission test score, GPA, family income, Pell Grant eligibility and parental education; 2) average high school grade point average and admission test scores; and 3) the count of students admitted via early action, early decision, or regular admissions. Additionally, the survey will include data about students receiving financial aid, including the average amount, cost of attendance, graduation rates, and graduates’ final cumulative grade point average. 

In the letter, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition highlight concerns with the proposal:

The proposed data collection will not achieve its stated goals: The proposal will not achieve the aim of helping to address racial discrimination. In SFFA v. Harvard, the Supreme Court held that the use of race as one factor in college admissions decisions violated equal protection. However, nothing in the ruling prevents colleges and universities from lawfully pursuing diversity as part of their mission. And given the variety of factors colleges use in making admissions and scholarship decisions, as well as the complex factors influencing student performance and graduation rates, it would be impossible to identify racial discrimination based on the data collection. Attorney General Bonta and the coalition raise alarms that ED may weaponize this data to aid the Trump Administration in targeting college and university it disagrees with. The attorneys general highlight the lack of consultation and input from stakeholders, the rushed process, and the alignment with the administration anti-DEI efforts as signs that ED may attempt to use this data to pressure these institutions to adopt administration priorities and abandon lawful efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion rather than to enforce anti-discrimination laws. 

The proposed data collection is unreasonably burdensome and is unlikely to result in high-quality data: The proposed data collection would require four-year colleges and universities to complete thousands of new survey data fields, despite vague definitions and unclear instructions. The schools would need to produce the data in a short, unreasonable timeframe, without proper input from stakeholders, and follow the burdensome requirement to submit data for five previous years. Much of the data requested will be inconsistently available across institutions and student populations, making it difficult to make meaningful comparisons. And the level of disaggregation proposed will also further splinter the data into small subgroups that make it less likely that statistically significant conclusions can be drawn, and poses concerns related to student privacy.

Attorney General Bonta remains committed to protecting California’s higher education institutions from unwarranted federal attacks and defending their efforts to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and to serve all students. In March, Attorney General Bonta, as part of a multistate coalition, issued guidance to institutions of higher education and K-12 schools regarding their obligations under federal civil rights laws and the U.S. Constitution. 

In filing the comment letter, Attorney General Bonta is joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. 

A copy of the comment letter is available here.