OAKLAND, Calif. – California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he and a coalition of 17 other attorneys general will submit a comment letter to the U.S. Department of Education opposing a Trump administration proposal that would require colleges and universities to provide data linking race to admissions, financial aid and student grades.
Bonta’s office stated the coalition supports the refusal to cooperate with the proposal, arguing it would not further Title VI enforcement, which prohibits discrimination based on race.
Instead, Bonta argues, it would impose unreasonable burdens on schools to provide extensive data, endanger student privacy and is extremely unlikely to produce useful results.
“The Trump Administration has continued to push forward its demand that colleges adhere to unreasonable, unnecessary reporting burdens — all in service of President Trump’s assault on lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and schools he dislikes,” said Attorney General Bonta.
“The U.S. Department of Education has ignored feedback from states and the public that this proposal threatens students’ privacy and is highly likely to produce inaccurate or unusable results. We will not allow data to be weaponized against the schools and students its collection should empower. We call on the Department of Education to rescind this fundamentally flawed proposal.”
On Aug. 7, 2025, President Trump directed the Department of Education to expand the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, 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.
The new survey would include collecting data about student admissions, financial aid and outcomes by gender and race.
This includes the institutions’ applied, admitted and enrolled cohorts, disaggregated by admission test score, GPA, family income and Pell Grant eligibility, as well as the count of students admitted through early action, early decision and regular admission.
Since the order, the Department of Education has made two requests for public comment to gather feedback about the proposal, with Bonta and the 17 other attorneys general responding by urging the agency to either withdraw the proposal or delay it to gather more public feedback.
Attorney General Bonta and the coalition argue that the proposed data collection is neither necessary nor beneficial to the department’s stated goal of enforcing Title VI.
They argue the proposal imposes unreasonable burdens on colleges and universities — requiring them to gather and submit never-before-collected data within a shortened timeline — and creates an untested procedure for submitting data, meaning it will likely not be processed or used in a timely manner.
The coalition also argues the agency’s responses to comments received during the first public comment period failed to adequately address concerns that the proposed data collection lacks privacy protections for students and is “almost unworkable” due to administrative burdens, unclear instructions, data quality concerns, unavailable data and the short timeline.
Withdrawing, delaying or limiting the initial rollout of the proposal would allow the agency to gather and implement feedback to minimize burdens on schools and enhance the quality and usefulness of the data collected.
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