The Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard made clear that considering race in college admissions violates students’ civil rights. Yet many schools are moving race discrimination out of sight to get around the ruling. Defending Education’s own report shows that more than 245 colleges and universities still run DEI offices.
In August 2025, President Trump directed the Department of Education to “ensure institutions of higher education receiving Federal financial assistance are transparent in their admissions practices.” In response, the Department is adding racial data on admissions and scholarships to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). IPEDS is a set of yearly surveys run by the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. It collects data on enrollment, graduation rates, faculty and staff, finances, tuition, and more. Policymakers, educators, reporters, government agencies, and parents rely on it for basic facts about colleges. The new piece, called the “Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement” (ACTS), is meant to root out discrimination in college admissions and scholarships.
On October 13, 2025, Defending Education (DE) submitted a comment urging the Department to require highly selective colleges that receive federal funds to complete the ACTS survey to track their admissions practices. These colleges have shown they will not follow the law on their own, so more safeguards are needed. DE also recommended requiring every college that receives federal funds to complete the survey to track how it awards scholarships, so students’ civil rights are respected.
Read the full comment below:
