FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 14, 2025
AACE Applauds Trump Administration’s Decisive Actions to Restore Meritocracy in Higher Education
Livingston, New Jersey — The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) applauds the Trump Administration for taking bold and decisive steps to restore fairness, meritocracy, and transparency in college admissions through two landmark executive actions: the Attorney General’s Memo: Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination, and President Trump’s Memorandum Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions.
These actions mark a major victory for merit-based education and a significant milestone in the ongoing fight for equal education rights in higher education. The Attorney General’s memo explicitly bans the use of race and race proxies—such as zip code, socioeconomic status, or essay prompts designed to elicit racial identity—in college admissions by institutions receiving federal funding. It reaffirms that any form of racial preference or indirect racial targeting violates federal civil rights laws and the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
President Trump’s memorandum further strengthens accountability by requiring colleges and universities to disclose detailed admissions criteria and data—ensuring transparency and preventing racial discrimination, whether overt or covert.
AACE is especially proud to note that many of the recommendations outlined in its 2023 policy document, “It’s Time for All American Colleges to Restore Meritocracy in Their Admission Processes, have been directly addressed by these executive actions. These include:
- Prohibiting race-based preferences and proxies in college admissions
- Enforcing transparency and accountability in admissions processes
- Upholding federal civil rights protections for Asian American and all applicants
“These actions reflect the values of fairness, equal opportunity, and academic excellence that AACE has long championed,” said Yukong Zhao, President of AACE. “We commend President Trump and Attorney General Bondi for their leadership in restoring meritocracy and protecting the civil rights of all students, regardless of race or background.”
AACE also issues a strong warning to colleges and universities: any attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s SFFA rulings—whether through covert use of race proxies, subjective evaluations, or opaque admissions criteria—will be met with public scrutiny and legal challenge. AACE will remain vigilant in defending the civil rights of Asian American students and ensuring that these federal guidelines are conscientiously implemented.
AACE remains committed to working with policymakers, educators, and community leaders to ensure that America’s education system rewards hard work, talent, and achievement—not identity politics.
Asian American Coalition for Education
Media Contact: Swan Lee, telephone: (617) 651-1328; Email: swanleeca@gmail.com
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org
Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) is a non-political, nonprofit, grassroots national alliance with over 300 partnering organizations nationwide. Since 2015, AACE have been mobilizing Asian communities to stand firmly behind SFFA in its lawsuits against Harvard and UNC. AACE helped expose the Ivy League college’s anti-Asian discrimination on the national stage. Over the last nine years, AACE teamed up with over 360 Asian American organizations, organized the Boston Rally in 2018 and “Equal Education for All” rally in 2022, encouraged Asian American students to join SFFA’s lawsuits, and filed five amicus briefs. Besides supporting SFFA, we have advanced the cause of equal education rights for the Asian-American community in many other areas, including federal adoption of AACE policy recommendation on college admissions in July 2018, federal lawsuit against Yale University in 2020, support to Asian Americans’ fights for equal education rights in Maryland, New York, Washington, California, Massachusetts and other states. AACE is the proven leader in fighting for Asian-American children’s equal educational rights.