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Some colleges and universities now have until April 6 to collect and report admissions data that the Education Department says it plans to use to identify unlawful race-based admissions practices, a federal judge decided Tuesday.
It’s the latest development in a lawsuit 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed against the department earlier this month over the Trump administration’s original demand that colleges and universities with selective admissions policies complete the new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement survey by March 18.
In August, Indiana University Bloomington sanctioned professor Benjamin Robinson after a student complained that Robinson had discussed in class his own experiences of being arrested and jailed during pro-Palestinian rallies.
Robinson said the examples were relevant to the lecture for his Introduction to German Thought and Culture course, which discusses philosophical concepts. Robinson, who received a letter of reprimand that will be in his permanent personnel file, is among at least two professors disciplined by Indiana’s flagship university under a two-year-old state law aimed at promoting intellectual diversity in college classrooms.
The Trump administration launched two new investigations into Harvard University “amid allegations that it continues to discriminate against students on the basis of race, color, and national origin,” the Department of Education announced in a news release Monday.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights said it received new complaints about antisemitic harassment on Harvard’s campus—an issue the administration has already spent a year investigating and which the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit about last week. OCR will also investigate claims that Harvard is continuing to use race-based preferences in admissions.
The U.S. Department of Education’s top ranking higher education official sent letters to two accreditors Monday directing them to eliminate their diversity, equity and inclusion standards that he contended were in violation of civil rights law.
In his letters, Kent said the Education Department would continue to recognize the two accreditors but warned that officials could take action against them — including pulling that recognition — if they enforce any of their suspended DEI standards before formally eliminating them. His letters escalate the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI standards at accrediting agencies.
College Republicans have sued the University of Florida’s president on free speech grounds over the school’s decision to deactivate its chapter after being notified that at least one member engaged in an antisemitic act.
The University of Florida College Republicans filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court against interim president Donald Landry, asking a judge to stop the enforcement of the school’s decision and to restore access to facilities on the Gainesville campus. “The University of Florida punitively deactivated and shut down the UFCR, in response to alleged viewpoints expressed by a member of UFCR, and in an effort to silence the club and chill its future speech,” the group said in its lawsuit.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from requiring colleges and universities to collect and report admissions data disaggregated by race and gender, Reuters reported.
The temporary restraining order, issued by U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor IV in Boston, comes in response to a lawsuit filed last week by 17 Democratic states over the administration’s demand that colleges and universities complete the new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement survey by March 18. Saylor’s order extends the deadline through March 25 “to permit a hearing and orderly resolution of the issues.”
