A federal judge has blocked a Trump administration directive that would have forced colleges and universities to certify, under penalty of losing federal funding, that race plays no role in their admissions decisions. The ruling marks the latest in a growing string of judicial roadblocks to White House executive actions on education, immigration, and institutional policy.
U.S. District Judge Adam Amin in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the executive order, which critics said went far beyond the Supreme Court's 2023 decision striking down affirmative action. The Hill reported that the order would have required institutions receiving federal grants or contracts to submit written certifications that race was not a factor in admissions, hiring, or scholarship decisions.
The executive order, signed earlier this year, directed federal agencies to condition funding on a school's willingness to certify compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. But the certification requirement went further than the court's holding. It would have compelled schools to attest that race was not considered at any stage of the admissions process, even in contexts the Supreme Court left untouched, such as essays discussing personal experiences with race.
A coalition of universities, civil rights organizations, and higher education groups sued, arguing the order exceeded presidential authority and imposed conditions Congress never authorized. Judge Amin agreed that the plaintiffs demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits, finding that the certification mandate lacked a clear statutory basis.
The injunction blocks enforcement nationwide while the case proceeds. The administration is expected to appeal.
The admissions certification order did not exist in a vacuum. It landed alongside a separate, more targeted confrontation between the Trump administration and Harvard University over international students. The Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard's certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, the federal system that allows schools to enroll foreign nationals and issue visa paperwork. That move threatened roughly 7,000 international students, about a quarter of Harvard's enrollment, who could have been forced to transfer or risk losing their legal status in the United States.
Harvard sued, and U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs temporarily blocked the revocation. National Review reported that Harvard argued the action was retaliatory, tied to the university's refusal to turn over foreign students' behavioral and disciplinary records and to disputes over campus protests and alleged antisemitism.
The university did not mince words in its legal filing:
"With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard's student body."
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem framed the action differently. She said the administration was "holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus."
After Judge Burroughs intervened on the visa program revocation, the White House did not back down. President Trump issued a separate proclamation aimed at blocking foreign students from entering the country to attend Harvard. That proclamation triggered another round of emergency litigation. The Washington Times reported that Judge Burroughs kept protections in place while the case moved forward, and the court was expected to issue a more lasting decision soon.
Harvard emailed its international students Friday to reassure them. "We expect the judge to issue a more enduring decision in the coming days," the university said.
The lawsuit itself put the stakes in plain terms: "Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard."
The pattern of executive action followed by judicial intervention has become a recurring feature of the Trump administration's second term. A federal judge earlier blocked enforcement of a Trump election-related executive order, and courts have stepped in on multiple fronts where the White House has pushed the boundaries of unilateral authority.
The admissions certification order affects far more than one Ivy League school. Thousands of colleges and universities receive federal research grants, student financial aid, or government contracts. A certification requirement with funding consequences would have forced every institution to make a legal representation about its internal processes or risk losing money that, in many cases, funds basic operations.
Higher education groups argued that the order created an impossible compliance burden. Schools would need to audit every admissions file, every scholarship decision, and every hiring choice to certify that race played no role. The plaintiffs contended this went beyond enforcing the Supreme Court's ruling and instead created a new, sweeping federal mandate without congressional authorization.
Judge Amin's injunction does not resolve the underlying legal questions. It holds the order in place while the court examines whether the president had the authority to impose such conditions. The administration will likely argue that the executive branch has broad power to attach conditions to federal spending, a legal theory that has met mixed results in court.
The fight over executive power and higher education fits a broader pattern. The Supreme Court has already signaled skepticism toward sweeping executive orders in other contexts, including the administration's birthright citizenship directive, where justices pressed hard on the limits of presidential authority during oral arguments.
Several open questions will shape how these cases unfold. On the admissions certification order, the court must decide whether the president can unilaterally condition existing federal funding on new compliance requirements that Congress did not specify. That question touches the "spending clause" of the Constitution and the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.
On the Harvard visa dispute, courts will need to determine whether DHS had lawful grounds to revoke the university's student visa certification, or whether the action was, as Harvard alleges, retaliation for the school's refusal to comply with demands the administration had no legal authority to make. Investigators have not publicly confirmed whether Harvard's refusal to share student disciplinary records violated any existing federal requirement.
Authorities have not said whether other universities face similar threats to their student visa programs. If the Harvard precedent holds, the administration could theoretically use the same mechanism against any school it views as insufficiently cooperative.
The legal battles over executive authority and education are unfolding alongside similar clashes in other areas. A D.C. appeals court recently blocked the administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals, another case where judges found the executive branch overstepped its bounds.
Conservatives who cheered the Supreme Court's decision to end race-based admissions have reason to care about how the enforcement mechanism works. If the executive branch can condition federal funding on new certifications without congressional approval, that power does not disappear when a different president takes office. A future administration could just as easily require schools to certify compliance with progressive policy goals as a condition of receiving grants.
The question is not whether the government should enforce the Supreme Court's ruling. The question is whether the president can create new enforcement tools on his own, or whether that job belongs to Congress.
Meanwhile, federal judges continue to clash over the boundaries of executive power in cases ranging from citizenship policy to election administration. Each ruling adds another data point to a legal landscape that will likely reach the Supreme Court again before long.
The administration has not indicated it plans to stop pressing these fights. Harvard has not indicated it plans to stop pushing back. The courts sit in the middle, doing the work the Constitution assigned them.
When the executive branch moves fast and the courts say slow down, the system is working exactly as designed. The only question is whether anyone in Washington still has the patience to let it.
