by Teresa R. Manning
On March 11, the California Attorney General, along with 16 additional Democrat states, filed a complaint in federal court against President Trump’s requirement that state universities collect and make public data on student admissions for race, GPA, and SAT scores. On Friday, March 13, federal Judge F. Dennis Saylor gave schools extra time to comply—by March 25 instead of March 18.
The Trump requirement is the administration’s effort to implement the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) opinion, which found racial preferences in university admissions unlawful, including for diversity or “DEI” rationales.
Trump’s efforts deserve support: The SFFA opinion was years in the making and was a careful correction to prior Court cases that led schools to engage in blatant reverse discrimination and neo-racism—basically disfavoring student applicants and faculty candidates of Western heritage and European descent to favor what they call “underrepresented minorities,” sometimes depicted with brown cartoon figures. SFFA found precisely such racial preferences in violation of federal civil rights laws as well as the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.
But instead of showing support for and compliance with Trump and the United States Supreme Court, Democrat states are predictably engaging in lawfare.
Their complaint argues that the “scope, breadth, and rushed process of implementing” the data collection requirement is burdensome and therefore harmful to state schools.
To this point, Trump Education Department Spokeswoman Ellen Keast calmly responded, “American taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent.”
Keast is actually understating the case.
Colleges and universities are not only taking billions in federal dollars every year; they are also leaving students more ignorant and more in debt than ever before.
Worse, the ignorance of graduates is directly related to their radicalization: university faculty and administrators are more than 95 percent registered Democrat—Georgetown Law Professor Nicholas Rosenkrantz clarifies this as “closer to the left edge of the Democratic Party”—and professors teach things such as “queer theory” or “women’s studies,” while college students know nothing about the Declaration of Independence or the Civil War.
Colleges and universities also openly favor foreigners, feminists, and anti-American applicants and faculty candidates to show they are good liberals and “anti-racists.” This sanctimonious virtue-signaling is both immoral and illegal, and all the more appalling when one considers that these same school officials never give their jobs to these pet constituencies. It’s all grift for them and illegal discrimination for others.
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has long called for even more information and data from institutions of higher education, given this record of failure; NAS also points out that calls to forgive or cancel student loan debt in recent years are also indictments of the current system. Attempted bailouts such as this are proof positive that these institutions are failing not only their students but also the wider public.
Despite this abysmal record, schools continue to feel entitled to take the money and run and answer basically to no one.
In addition to data collection on GPA, SAT scores, and race and sex numbers for admittees, NAS also favors a requirement that schools certify to the Education Department that they protect free speech, due process, and academic freedom. They should additionally certify that they have reported and disclosed any and all foreign gifts—already a legal requirement for donations over $250,000, but one they typically ignore.
In sum, liberal attorneys general appear to be protecting liberal colleges and universities to preserve a corrupt higher education system that’s hurting students and the country.
By contrast, Trump is trying to give effect to one of the most important Supreme Court precedents ever, SFFA, and is starting, logically, with the first step—that schools be transparent about admissions and accountable to the taxpayers who underwrite them.
Needless to say, Trump should be applauded for this effort, and those resisting should be ashamed.
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Teresa R. Manning is Policy Director at the National Association of Scholars, President of the Virginia Association of Scholars, and a former law professor at Virginia’s Scalia Law School, George Mason University.
Why does the federal government fund these schools in the first place? These institutions should be self-supporting considering the astronomical fees now charged for subpar educations. Profs should actually be required to teach rather than to get paid for “research” and book writing. Also the number of irrelevant majors should be eliminated. Who really needs a degree in mid-renaissance basket weaving if they are supposedly readying themselves to be productive citizens?