The Trump Administration ordered the Department of Education (DOE) to collect data regarding the race, gender, test scores and grade point averages of college applicants to assess whether universities are giving preference to minority applicants.
The press release from the DOE states that “institutions of higher education will now have to report data disaggregated by race and sex relating to their applicant pool, admitted cohort, and enrolled cohort at the undergraduate level and for specific graduate and professional programs.”
According to the press release, the data being collected are “quantitative measures of applicants’ and admitted students’ academic achievements such as standardized test scores, GPAs and other applicant characteristics.”
This directive grants the DOE the power to limit aid to institutions should they not agree to provide student information. This order follows the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that effectively eliminated affirmative action in college admissions.
In an interview with The New York Times, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said that this new order “will ensure meritocracy and excellence once again characterize higher education.”
On the contrary, UM sophomore Caleb Marcella, who identifies as Black and Latino, finds the Trump Administration’s new policy odd.
“I think it’s unfortunate and just plain weird,” Marcella said. “If a student is accepted, they were accepted for a reason not just because of their race.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Richard Kahlenberg, an advocate for class-based affirmative action who served as a witness for Students for Fair Admission in the Supreme Court case, said that he believes additional data needs to be included in this new order.
While Kahlenberg agrees that admissions transparency is important, he also warned that the White House’s order would be incomplete without taking into account the student’s socioeconomic status.
“By failing to request the socioeconomic data, it looks like the administration is going to take us down this very extreme path where a university that achieves racial diversity is suspect, even if it uses a race-neutral means like socioeconomic status,” said Kahlenberg.
Research shows that a student’s test score closely correlates with his or her socioeconomic status. Statistically, Black and Latino students are more likely than white and Asian students to come from lower-income backgrounds.
Despite this statistic, an anonymous student who identifies as Hispanic agrees with the Trump Administration’s decision.
“I was a straight-A student in high school and had a lot of extracurriculars with leadership positions,” the student said. “I worked hard to earn my spot, and I am very passionate about learning more to help others in the future.”
While the student is proud of his or her heritage, the student is also proud of the accomplishments that lead to his or her to success.
“We are all the future of America and should be chosen for college based on hard work, dedication and achievements instead of just our ethnicity,” the anonymous student said.
Some people also believe that this new ruling is an opportunity for hard work and merit to pay off, but others are skeptical of the Trump Administration’s true intentions.
Stephron Allyson, a Black sophomore at UM, is unsure of the Trump Administration’s motivation.
“Considering the other executive orders and issues [Trump] has had with other universities, I don’t think this new rule of requiring GPA and test scores is for the reasons being stated,” he said.
He believes there are holes in the administration’s explanation that leave room for questions.
“I feel like the decisions the Trump Administration made does not reflect any care or concern about the education of students,” Allyson said.
While the court ruled against affirmative action and admitting students based solely on the applicant’s race, it is still a factor that can be included in parts of a student’s application.
The opinion of the court states, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”