Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Race Surveillance Mandate

The Trump administration is ordering every college and university that receives federal aid to submit detailed, individual-level racial and demographic data on their applicants and admitted students — threatening institutions that miss the March 18 deadline with fines exceeding $71,000 per violation and loss of federal financial aid eligibility.

This isn't civil rights enforcement. It's a surveillance dragnet — and Congress must stop it.

Here's what's at stake and what demands your voice:

• The administration gutted the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights — leaving thousands of actual civil rights complaints unresolved — and is now invoking civil rights law to justify mass data collection.

• The mandate collects granular, individual-level admissions data that experts warn jeopardizes student privacy and makes individuals easily identifiable.

• The policy was rushed through without proper rulemaking, leaving institutions vulnerable to heavy penalties for paperwork errors — not actual discrimination.

• The Supreme Court's 2023 ruling preserved students' right to discuss how race shaped their lives in admissions essays. This mandate appears designed to chill that protected expression.

Seventeen state attorneys general have already gone to court to stop this. Congress must go further.

Sign now to tell Congress: block Trump’s racial surveillance mandate and protect student privacy, institutional autonomy, and due process.

In solidarity,

Action Collective