Massachusetts Federal Court Halts ACTS Survey in Seventeen States

Quick Hits

• A Massachusetts federal court granted a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the ACTS survey against public institutions in seventeen plaintiff states, finding plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the promulgation and adoption of the survey was arbitrary and capricious.
• The court rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that the ACTS survey exceeds NCES’s statutory authority and that it violates the Paperwork Reduction Act, affirming that NCES has broad authority to collect disaggregated demographic data and that the statute does not bar its use for enforcement referrals.
• The court found the promulgation and adoption of the ACTS survey was arbitrary and capricious because NCES abandoned its established deliberative process solely to meet an unexplained 120-day presidential deadline and “‘entirely failed’” to consider the simultaneous dismantling of ED.
• The injunction is limited to the seventeen plaintiff states and their constituent public institutions; institutions outside those states remain subject to the ACTS survey requirements absent separate judicial relief.

Background

The underlying lawsuit, Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education, was filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and sixteen other states against the ED, the secretary of education, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and its director, challenging the approval and implementation of the ACTS survey as unlawful. The ACTS survey, which institutions of higher education were initially required to complete by March 18, 2026, significantly expands the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data collection. The survey requires institutions to report admissions, aid, and outcomes data disaggregated by race, sex, test scores, GPA, income, and other factors for the current academic year, and, for the first time in IPEDS history, six prior years (2019–20 through 2024–25).

In August 2025, President Donald Trump directed the secretary of education to expand the scope of IPEDS reporting within 120 days to track race-conscious admissions practices following the Supreme Court of the United States 2023 ’decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon then directed NCES to collect the data within that same 120-day timeline. After abbreviated notice-and-comment periods, OMB approved the ACTS, and ED opened the survey on December 18, 2025.

On March 11, 2026, plaintiffs filed a complaint asserting three claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA): (1) that the ACTS exceeds NCES’s statutory authority, (2) that it violates the Paperwork Reduction Act and the E-Government Act of 2002, and (3) that it was proposed and adopted arbitrarily and capriciously. The court issued a series of temporary restraining orders extending the ACTS survey deadline while briefing proceeded. Following a March 24, 2026, hearing, the court treated plaintiffs’ motion as one seeking a preliminary injunction.

The Court’s Ruling

The court found that plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on their statutory authority and PRA claims.

On statutory authority, the court held that the ACTS survey “fits comfortably” within NCES’s authority under 20 U.S.C. § 9543(a)(3) to collect disaggregated data by race, ethnicity, and similar characteristics. The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the survey’s potential use for enforcement referrals rendered it non-neutral, reasoning that “one of the primary reasons for the government to seek data broken down by race and ethnicity … is to ascertain whether the data shows a potential pattern of racial discrimination” and that the statute contains no prohibition on using IPEDS data for enforcement referrals. The court also rejected the argument that only the Office of Civil Rights could receive compliance-related data, finding that NCES is not barred from collecting such information in the first instance.

On the PRA claim, the court concluded that the statute requires only that an agency certify compliance and provide a supporting record, not that a court independently determine whether the agency substantively complied with the PRA’s requirements.

The court found a strong likelihood of success on the arbitrary and capricious claim, identifying two principal deficiencies.

First, the court found that NCES abandoned the deliberate, multistep process it had historically used to implement IPEDS changes, including technical review panels, stakeholder collaboration, and pilot testing, solely to meet an unexplained 120-day presidential deadline. Neither the president, the secretary, nor the agency ever provided a reasoned explanation for the compressed timeline.

The agency dismissed all alternatives raised by commenters, including pilot years, and phased collections, as “infeasible” based solely on the timeline, without explaining why the deadline existed or why the alternatives could not be adopted. The court emphasized that the problem was not simply that there was a deadline, but rather that the agency rejected multiple concerns and alternatives “solely in order to achieve an arbitrary and unexplained deadline.”

Second, the court found that NCES entirely failed to consider the simultaneous dismantling of the ED. At the time the ACTS survey was being implemented, NCES had reduced its staff from approximately one hundred employees to as few as three or thirteen, and the IPEDS team went from eight staff members to three.

The agency never acknowledged the staff reductions, never explained how its diminished workforce would manage the expanded workload, and never addressed what would happen to the data once NCES ceases to exist. The court characterized the agency’s dismantlement as “an important aspect of the problem” that the agency “entirely failed to consider.”

The court found irreparable harm based on the administrative burden on institutions, which were forced to restructure data-collection systems and divert resources from essential functions such as financial aid, scholarship awards, and accreditation. The court also credited the risk of enforcement actions arising from inconsistent or inaccurate data submissions caused by unclear definitions and compressed timelines, noting that federal regulation authorizes fines of up to $71,545 per violation. The court deferred ruling on student privacy issues.

The balance of equities and public interest favored relief, with the court citing a strong public interest in restraining arbitrary exercises of federal power and relieving public universities of unnecessary burdens.

Scope of Relief

The preliminary injunction is limited to the seventeen plaintiff states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, and their constituent public institutions. The court declined to issue universal or nationwide relief, noting that plaintiffs themselves did not seek it. The order was issued under both 5 U.S.C. § 705 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 and is without prejudice to further modification. The court also ordered plaintiffs to retain all records responsive to the ACTS survey for the duration of the litigation.

Next Steps

Two motions to intervene, filed by the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts (AICUM), remain pending, with a hearing scheduled for April 13, 2026. Institutions outside the seventeen plaintiff states remain subject to the ACTS survey requirements absent separate judicial relief, although the court’s finding on the arbitrary-and-capricious claim may encourage additional challenges by other states or institutional groups.

Higher education institutions may wish to monitor developments in this litigation and assess their compliance posture in light of this order. Institutions within the seventeen plaintiff states may wish to note the record-retention obligation and consider how to preserve all data responsive to the ACTS survey.

Ogletree Deakins’ Higher Education Practice Group and Workforce Analytics and Compliance Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Compliance, Government Contracting and Reporting, Higher Education, State Developments, and Workforce Analytics and Compliance blogs as additional information becomes available.

This article and more information on how the Trump administration’s actions impact employers can be found on Ogletree Deakins’ Administration Resource Hub.

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