New York Attorney General Letitia James is squaring off with the Trump administration over a sprawling new federal data grab that would force colleges to dig up and hand over years of detailed admissions and student records. On Wednesday, James and a coalition of state attorneys general filed suit to block the move, arguing the rushed expansion of IPEDS is politically driven and would dump massive privacy and operational headaches on campuses across New York.
My office is suing the Trump administration for targeting colleges and demanding they turn over sensitive student data to root out DEI initiatives. I won't let this administration stretch their authority to serve their political agenda. I'm fighting to protect our students.
— Letitia James (@newyorkstateag) March 11, 2026
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, asks a judge to bar the Department of Education from enforcing the new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, or ACTS. The suit names the department, Secretary Linda McMahon, the Office of Management and Budget and OMB director Russell Vought as defendants, according to the court filing, and warns that colleges that do not comply could face fines or lose access to federal student aid. The complaint frames the case as a straight-up Administrative Procedure Act challenge.
According to materials from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Office of Management and Budget, the new ACTS component opened in December and requires four-year institutions to report admissions and aid data sliced into highly specific categories. Colleges must disaggregate by race-sex pairings, GPA and test-score quintiles, family income ranges, Pell eligibility and application round, among other fields. The same documents note that ACTS is pulling in multiple retrospective years of data and that institutions have been handed a tight turnaround to respond. The technical specs and timetable appear in OMB and NCES filings.
What James said
James is casting the fight as a stand against what she calls a politically motivated effort to target diversity, equity and inclusion programs under the guise of transparency.
“Once again, this administration is trying to stretch the federal government’s authority to serve its own political agenda and target DEI initiatives,” James said in a statement, adding that the office is going to court “to stop this unlawful mandate and protect institutions and students across the country.” Her office says the core of the lawsuit is student privacy and institutional autonomy, not a blanket defense of any particular campus policy. The Attorney General’s office released the statement Wednesday.
Campus groups warn of privacy and accuracy problems
On campus, the reaction has been wary at best. Higher-education groups and civil-rights lawyers have urged the department to slow down and rethink the plan, saying the scope and speed of the collection could scramble the numbers and expose students in small or specialized programs.
Organizations including the National Association for College Admission Counseling and legal advocates at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have said the proposal is unworkable on the current timeline and poses real privacy risks. In formal comments and petitions to federal officials, NACAC and the Lawyers’ Committee pressed OMB and NCES to rethink how, and how fast, the government is demanding the data.
The legal argument and timeline
The lawsuit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that the Education Department skipped required rulemaking procedures and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in rolling out ACTS. The states say the retroactive and highly disaggregated demands will force colleges to scramble for records they never had a reason to compile in the first place, and warn that in small programs or niche majors, the data could make individual students identifiable.
Responses to the ACTS collection are currently scheduled for mid-March, which leaves campuses with a narrow window to either comply or hope the courts step in. If the injunction does not come through, New York's public systems - including SUNY and CUNY - could be pressed to divert staff and IT resources on short notice to chase down the required numbers, advocates say. The states are asking the court to halt enforcement immediately while the broader legal challenge plays out.
