FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 8, 2025

Trump’s Admissions Data Order Threatens to Roll Back Decades of Hard-Fought Progress
EdTrust warns directive will weaponize transparency to attack diversity and equity in higher education

WASHINGTON — Wil Del Pilar, Ph.D., senior vice president of EdTrust, issued the following statement in response to the presidential memorandum Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions:

“For generations, students of color were systematically shut out of America’s colleges and universities, denied access to the very opportunities that could change their lives and strengthen our democracy. In recent decades, through the tireless work of committed students, administrators, alumni advocates, communities, and faculty, colleges have made strides in correcting those wrongs. We have witnessed campuses slowly transforming into places that welcome and reflect the diversity of our nation — not just the privileged few.

“And now, as campuses are struggling to implement changes to admissions because of the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) vs. Harvard and SFFA vs. North Carolina decision, this administration has issued a directive that continues their assault on diversity and threatens to undo decades of hard-fought progress.

“Transparency is not the problem. The danger lies in how this administration will weaponize the data — based on their fundamental misunderstanding of the ruling in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision — to target universities for doing the right thing.

1. Will institutions be accused of ‘illegal discrimination’ simply for admitting more students of color?
2. If applications from students of color rise, will colleges face federal investigation for supposedly ‘artificially’ boosting those numbers?
3. Will the admission and enrollment of students of color, international scholars, and other historically underserved students be placed under a microscope, chilling their recruitment, enrollment, and success?

“The availability of admissions data should be used to break down systemic barriers, not to build new ones. Instead, this directive risks the futures of our students, using the language of fairness to justify policies that make our higher education system less fair, less just, and less representative of the America we aspire to be.”

###