Massachusetts Federal Court Tees Up Broader Preliminary Injunction of ACTS Survey

Quick Hits

• A federal court in Massachusetts has temporarily halted the Education Department’s ACTS survey for a group of higher education institutions that intervened in a legal challenge brought by seventeen states.
• The latest temporary restraining order extends the compliance deadline for intervening institutions to April 24, 2026, while prohibiting enforcement of previous deadlines.
• The order follows a preliminary injunction blocking the ACTS survey as likely “arbitrary and capricious,” limited to the seventeen states and their institutions of higher education.

On April 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV, in Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education, issued a new temporary restraining order extending the deadline for the ACTS survey, which requires colleges and universities to submit a variety of admissions data broken down by race and sex going back six years, for several intervenors and “their constituent institutions of higher education through April 24, 2026.”

The order is the latest in a series of temporary restraining orders that ultimately delayed ED’s ACTS survey for several intervening associations of higher education institutions and other independent schools, which were ultimately to expire on April 14, 2026. The order further prohibits the federal government “from enforcing the deadlines” against “those institutions, without prejudice to the issuance of such other preliminary relief as justice may require.”

Procedural Background

The ACTS survey operationalized President Donald Trump’s August 2025 memorandum, “Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions,” and the same-day directive from Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, significantly expanding the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), a system of interrelated surveys conducted annually by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Specifically, the survey, which opened on December 18, 2025, requires institutions of higher education 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, requires institutions to provide information for the prior six years (2019–20 through 2024–25).

On March 11, 2026, just days before the ACTS survey deadline, a coalition of seventeen states led by Massachusetts filed a lawsuit alleging the survey is a “rushed,” “unprecedented,” and “burdensome” expansion of data reporting requirements for institutions of higher education.

On April 3, 2026, Judge Saylor issued a preliminary injunction applying to the states. While the court found it unlikely that they would succeed on their claims that the ACTS survey exceeds NCES’s statutory authority and the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), the court found it likely that the survey was adopted and implemented in a manner that was “arbitrary and capricious” and unlawful.

However, the preliminary injunction was limited to the state plaintiffs and the public institutions in those states. In limiting the scope of relief, the court cited the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., which limited federal courts’ authority to issue universal or nationwide injunctions.

Intervenors’ Temporary Restraining Order

Before the preliminary injunction ruling, several higher education associations, representing more than one hundred colleges and universities, and several independent colleges sought to join the litigation challenging the ACTS survey and to delay their compliance deadline. The court allowed them to intervene and, according to the latest order, has converted their motions into motions for a preliminary injunction.

The latest order applies to the Association of American Universities, Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, Maine Independent Colleges Association, North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges and Universities, and a group of independent colleges, including Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Sarah Lawrence College, Swarthmore College, and Vassar College.

The same day as the new temporary restraining order, the intervenors filed a brief of supplemental authorities listing recent cases that suggest that the CASA, Inc. ruling does not prohibit federal courts’ authority to “postpone the effective date of an agency action” and ultimately “set aside” an agency action under Sections 705 and 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which would function like a nationwide injunction.

Next Steps

The latest temporary restraining order grants a reprieve from compliance with the ACTS survey to a larger group of institutions of higher education that were not subject to the court’s prior preliminary injunction, at least until April 24, 2026. The court will now consider whether to grant a similar preliminary injunction to those intervenors and is likely to issue a decision before the latest temporary restraining order expires. Should the court grant the preliminary injunction for an expanded group of schools, it may invite more institutions to seek a delay in compliance with the ACTS survey, which was due on March 18, 2026.

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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