Attorney General Dan Rayfield and a coalition of 16 other attorneys general today challenged the Trump Administration’s demand that higher education institutions provide new data via a recently added component to the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS), a collection of interrelated surveys administered by the Department of Education. The purpose of this new survey is to track institutions’ compliance with the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard », which says that race cannot be used as a factor in admissions. The coalition argues the rushed implementation of the new survey requirements leaves institutions vulnerable to inadvertent errors and unreliable data that could lead to costly penalties and baseless investigations into their practices, and that it jeopardizes student privacy by requesting in-depth information about individual students.
“This administration has already gone after our elections and a free press – now they’re focusing on higher education,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “Independent universities are a cornerstone of a free society. Oregon’s colleges and universities should answer to their students and their communities, not to a federal government, using surveillance and the threat of penalties to dictate how our institutions operate.”
Administered through the Department of Education (ED), IPEDS is a mandatory survey that gathers data from colleges, universities, and technical and vocational programs participating in federal student financial programs. Since 1986, it has served as a valuable tool for reliable data collection and statistical reporting by universities. On August 7, 2025, President Trump issued a memo stating that IPEDS would now become a tool to track “consideration of race in higher education” and investigate universities’ compliance with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Following the memo, ED Secretary Linda McMahon announced new requirements for institutions demanding they report data via IPEDS disaggregated by race and sex and retroactively report data from the past seven years. On December 18, 2025, following a notice and comment period in which members of the coalition provided comments » strongly opposing the new rules, the Trump Administration finalized the new requirements. The deadline for institutions to provide the new data is March 18, 2026.
In the lawsuit, Attorney General Rayfield and the coalition argue that the ED’s rushed implementation of the new data requirements ignores the incredible burden they place on institutions and dramatically increases the possibility of inadvertent reporting errors and unreliable data. For example, in their haste to roll out the new requirements, ED failed provide definitions for critical terms, leaving universities guessing what information they are supposed to provide, and facing severe financial penalties if they guess wrong. Furthermore, the Trump Administration has eliminated hundreds of positions within ED, including within the very offices responsible for providing clarity about the requirements to universities.
Moreover, the coalition argues the new data demands jeopardize student privacy and could lead to individuals being easily identified. Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the Administration’s new IPEDS demands.
The attorneys general argue the Trump Administration’s actions are contrary to law, fail to observe the procedure required by law, and are arbitrary and capricious. They argue the implementation of the new data requirements was unlawful and will place an undue burden on colleges and universities.
Joining Attorney General Rayfield in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington.
