Trump's week in review: USPS whistleblower; birth tourism order blocked; ballroom gets green light
1. Trump looking to strip schools’ tax exemption if they consider race
The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday that they are proposing regulations to remove the tax-exempt status for schools that consider race, seeking to restore "merit-based opportunity."
The regulations would target any racial preferences given for applications, loans, scholarships and other programs, and would apply to approximately 18,000 private schools.
"The proposal would also eliminate outdated provisions of IRS guidance that permitted schools to favor certain racial preferences in admissions, facilities, programs, scholarships, and financial assistance," the announcement states. "Treasury and the IRS have concluded that these provisions are inconsistent with a uniform nondiscrimination standard and are incompatible with the Supreme Court’s case law."
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the University of North Carolina's and Harvard University's admissions policies, which used race as a factor in student acceptance, were unconstitutional.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration “is standing up for America’s students by ensuring racial discrimination has no place in American education.”
“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” stated Bessent.
“Today’s Treasury and IRS proposed regulations establish a clear standard, and the institutions that continue to use discriminatory practices will no longer receive the benefits of federal tax-exempt status.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, told The Washington Post that he was confident the rules are “not going to come to pass” and said he believed it was a familiar pattern of behavior from the administration.
“Discover cudgel. Wave cudgel,” said Mitchell. “Find violations of laws that don’t exist. Threaten retribution. Go to court. We’ve seen this over and over and over again.”
