Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced on Mar. 11 that she is co-leading a coalition of 17 attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s new data reporting requirements for colleges and universities. The suit targets recent changes to the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS), which now require institutions to provide detailed student information to track compliance with the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
The coalition argues that these new requirements were implemented too quickly, putting schools at risk of making mistakes and exposing them to penalties or investigations. They also raise concerns about student privacy, as the new rules ask for more detailed information about individual students than before.
“This Administration’s unlawful and haphazard actions are threatening the wellbeing of Massachusetts students and the prosperity of our colleges and universities. There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary timeframe, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request,” said AG Campbell.
IPEDS has been used since 1986 by colleges, universities, and technical programs participating in federal student financial aid programs to collect reliable statistical data. However, following an August 7, 2025 memo from President Trump, IPEDS was repurposed as a tool to monitor whether higher education institutions consider race in admissions decisions. Education Secretary Linda McMahon later required schools to report disaggregated data by race and sex—including retroactive reports covering seven years—by March 18, 2026.
The lawsuit claims that these changes were made without clear definitions or adequate guidance from the Department of Education. The coalition says this lack of clarity increases the risk of errors while threatening severe financial penalties if schools make mistakes. Additionally, reductions in staff at key offices within the Department have left institutions without needed support.
Joining Campbell are attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington.
