On August 7, 2025, President Donald Trump took two different actions to short circuit legal roadblocks in his efforts to alter how research grants are awarded and ensure that race is not a factor in university admissions.
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Awarding New Research Grants
Previously, the Trump Administration tried to order a short term freeze on scientific grant making programs. This freeze was challenged in court, and Federal District courts issued a number of temporary restraining orders (TROs) to pause the freezes until they can be decided on their merits.
On August 7, President Trump signed a new Executive Order entitled, “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.” The Executive Order requires a senior official at each agency “to review discretionary awards on an annual basis for consistency with agency priorities and substantial progress. Such review shall include an accountability mechanism for officials responsible for selection and granting of the awards.” The Executive Order prohibits discretionary grants that subsidize or fund:
“(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;
(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;
(C) illegal immigration; or
(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.”
The Trump Administration has challenged grants to about 60 universities on the grounds of alleged antisemitism or improper diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. This Executive Order makes these concerns a more explicit part of the grant-making process.
The Executive Order encourages the agencies to spread the grants among more institutions rather than funding the same institutions with many grants.
Overhead Recovery
Historically, federal grants were divided into two parts: direct costs that pay for salaries and equipment actually used in research and indirect costs that cover facility and administrative costs that are recovered using a rate approved for each institution. Peer review panels award grants by selecting between proposals from rival research groups at different universities. Grants would compete based upon the size of the direct costs, with indirect costs being ignored in the selection process. This policy avoided penalizing researchers who work in areas with high utility rates or with expensive lab space.
At least four grant-making agencies: the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health and the Department of Energy adopted orders seeking to cap indirect costs at 15% of direct costs. In contrast, Cornell recovers at a 64% rate. Cornell joined other universities in suing these for agencies to successfully challenge the 15% cap.
The August 7 Executive Order addresses the recovery of overhead cost associated with “facilities and administration” in two ways. First, it tells agencies to consider the indirect cost recovery rates when selecting which grants to fund. Second, it requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to “revise the Uniform Guidance and other relevant guidance to appropriately limit the use of discretionary grant funds for costs related to facilities and administration.” Many people expect federal regulations to be revised to include the 15% overhead recovery cap.
The result will be to undermine the recent legal victories won in the various court cases, and to trigger a new round of litigation challenging the new rules that will be produced to implement this Executive Order.
Admissions Data Disclosure
President Trump has repeatedly called for the elimination of consideration of race when universities select students to admit to their programs. Since the 1960s, colleges have practiced “affirmative action,” which allowed race to be a consideration when making admissions decisions.
However, in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case (2023), the Supreme Court held that race cannot be used as a factor in making admission decisions. In other words, affirmative action in admissions was effectively ended.
As a part of the Trump Administration’s settlement of the Columbia and Brown cases, disclosure of detailed admissions data to see the relationship between GPA, SAT scores, and the probability of being admitted for each identity group. However, that level of detailed data is not currently required for schools other than Columbia and Brown.
On August 7, President Trump sent a memorandum to the Secretary of Education addressing this lack of data. It says:
“The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), managed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), plays a critical role in promoting transparency in American higher education. However, IPEDS requires long-overdue technological upgrades to expand its data collection and fulfill its mission effectively.
“American students and taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including confidence that they are recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists, and other critical workers vital to the next generations of American prosperity. Race-based admissions practices are not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being. It is therefore the policy of my Administration to ensure institutions of higher education receiving Federal financial assistance are transparent in their admissions practices.”
Trump is ordering a “revamp the online presentation of IPEDS data, such that it is easily accessible and intelligibly presented for parents and students.”
On August 15, the Department of Education published a proposal in the Federal Register that would impose a new IPEDS data requirement on four year colleges that utilize a “system of selective admissions.” Each year, each college would divide its application pool into five equal parts based upon both GPA and test scores, and post the race data and percent admitted for each quintile. It would also indicate the number of students in that quintile accepted by early decision.
Critics note that most of the IPEDS staff was laid off earlier this year.
The White House issued a fact sheet to accompany the memorandum that alleges that universities use “other overt and hidden racial proxies” when making admission decisions.
