The Trump administration has ratcheted up the pressure on colleges and universities by demanding that they prove they are not considering race or sex as part of the admissions process. Now, elite institutions, including Brown, Harvard, Columbia, and others, are facing a challenge with historic consequences: Can they maintain a diverse student body while complying with Trump’s crackdown?

Higher education leaders say the administration’s new rules could dismantle tools that have long proved to balance equity with academic excellence. To preserve the mix of voices they say is essential to prepare students for an increasingly global workforce, admissions officers may turn more heavily to personal essays and university-specific supplemental questions as legally defensible ways to assess socioeconomic backgrounds, geography, race, and life experience.

During his second administration, President Trump has waged a war against Harvard, moved to strip billions of dollars in funding from Columbia University, and attacked other elite universities including Brown, Northwestern, and Princeton, citing antisemitism and a crackdown on liberal values.

As schools scramble to figure out how to comply with his directives, it’s unclear if the administration is on firm legal ground.

“The legal validity of these missives is unclear and subject to extensive litigation,” said David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, of the Trump administration’s Aug. 7 executive order demanding elite universities show proof they are not considering race or gender in admissions. “There remains no law that prohibits the discussion or consideration of diversity at a high level or that prevents institutions from defining its own admission criteria based on their mission and student body objectives.”

Already, the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that overturned race-based affirmative action has reshaped campuses. Brown University, one of the most selective colleges in the nation with a 5.65 percent acceptance rate, saw a 40 percent drop in Black students and a 29 percent decline in Hispanic students after the Supreme Court’s decision. The share of Black first-year students enrolled at 11 of the most competitive schools in Massachusetts dropped, on average, about 40 percent compared with the average of the previous two years, a Globe analysis found.

University administrators have not shared how they plan to achieve their mission to preserve diversity while following the Trump administration’s mandates. Brown president Christina H. Paxson, provost Frank Doyle, and associate provost for enrollment and dean of undergraduate admission Logan Powell all declined to be interviewed. Spokespeople for Yale and Dartmouth also did not respond to the Globe’s requests for comment.

In an email to the Globe, Brown spokeswoman Cass Cliatt insisted the university’s mission would not change.

“I can affirm that Brown’s commitment to welcoming students, faculty and staff from a wide range of backgrounds and identities and ensuring a thriving academic community for everyone remains unchanged,” said Cliatt.

In July, Brown and the Trump administration came to a settlement agreement that requires the university to submit detailed admissions data, including test scores, GPAs, and breakdowns by race, to prove its process is “merit-based.” Soon after, the president signed the executive order directing all universities to do the same.

Conservatives applauded the terms.

Because of the agreement with Brown, “aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement.

Conservative activist Edward Blum, who is the president of Students for Fair Admissions, the Virginia-based group that brought the anti-affirmative action cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to the Supreme Court, enthusiastically supported the new guidance, claiming American universities “have hidden behind opaque admissions practices that often rely on racial preferences to shape their incoming classes.” 

It’s unclear how the Trump administration will track, process, and make the test scores, grades, and admissions data they’ve demanded public. The administration fired nearly everyone who worked at the national Center for Education Statistics, which is the data center within the Department of Education.

Most Ivy League schools found a loophole around the Supreme Court decision by asking prospective students to write about their backgrounds — though the Trump administration alleges that doing so could be unlawful. 

“Some colleges are also getting creative with their essay prompts to encourage reflection on how students engage across differences,” said Tiffany Blessing, a college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a consulting firm that helps students get into elite schools.

Tufts University, for instance, asks applicants to share ways they’ve contributed to building an inclusive community. The management school at Boston College provides students an array of essay question options, including one that asks them to describe an aspect of their candidacy, like a low test score or work history gap, in detail. “Provide background, tell us how you’ve grown from it,” the guidelines say.

Columbia University asks students how an aspect of their “lived experience” is important to them. Harvard provides an opportunity for prospective students to tell admission counselors about challenging circumstances in their lives, such as illness or other difficulties that may have affected their grades.

During its 2025-2026 application cycle, Brown’s questions included ones asking students to reflect on where they come from and how an aspect of growing up inspired or challenged them, or what brings them joy – “whether big or small, mundane or spectacular.”

In her official guidance to institutions that receive federal funding, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned that such prompts could be an unlawful proxy for race or sex, but most schools haven’t eliminated the essay prompts from their applications. 

“Brown is known to be the most liberal, more so than any other Ivy League school. And Brown loves the social justice warriors,” said Mari Darboe, a former Brown admissions counselor. “With the Trump administration, however, looking over the admissions committee’s shoulders, it is going to be really tough for Brown admissions to commit to admitting as many social justice warriors.”

Darboe, now a senior admissions consultant at Ivy Coach, said Brown can still recruit in underrepresented communities, partner with area high schools, and look for talent through a wide lens.

Nellie Brennan Hall, a former associate director of admission at Brown, said schools like Brown care too much about maintaining a diverse student body “to just roll over” and follow the Trump administration’s orders.

“They might accept some of the demands from this administration to keep some funding for research, but the core of these schools is really the diverse dialogue that their undergraduates have,” said Brennan Hall, who now works as a senior private counselor for Top Tier Admissions. “They’re just going to figure out a new way to do it. They’ll find whatever way possible within the legal realm.”

For Brown, as for other elite universities, there’s more at stake than just federal funding. Brown’s settlement with the Trump administration included a clause to adopt the Trump administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” which was a blow to Brown’s reputation in the eyes of many students and alumni.

“I am discouraging my child from applying to institutions who have made these deals,” said Dee Celeste Goldberg, a transgender woman who graduated from Brown in 1998. She called the agreement “transphobic” and said Brown’s officials proved they viewed the “trans community as expendable.”

“I find it hard to imagine that I will be spending tens of thousands of dollars per semester in tuition for a school that won’t stand up for its students,” said Celeste Goldberg, who now works as a research engineer.

Hawkins said the administration intends to create a fear that any consideration of discussion of diversity will become the target of punitive federal action.

“The reality for colleges and universities, of course, is that for most, their missions direct them to serve students in their infinite diversity, which they will continue to do if they and our country are to thrive,” said Hawkins.

Back on Brown’s campus this fall, incoming junior Clarissa Thorne Dilsa said she and her friends are worried. The annual convocation for Black students has shrunk each year, she said, and interest is waning in The Black Star Journal, the student newspaper covering the Black experience at Brown, where she is an editor.

“There’s been steady changes already since affirmative action was overturned,” said Thorne Dilsa. Trump’s new crackdowns “are going to strategically push out many minority students. Campus is going to become very homogenous. I’m probably going to feel really uncomfortable at Brown.”