What America is Trump Building?
Terry H. Schwadron
Aug. 11, 2025
Disclosures this week that Donald Trump’s “anti-woke” obsession is reaching into college admission policies at Columbia and Brown Universities simultaneously reflect an abuse of office, weakness from academic leadership, and a strange view of what makes for community.
It feels heavy-handed, unnecessary and wrong.
Permission for the government to review admissions data came as part of Trump’s recent settlements with Columbia and Brown to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle claims of violations of federal anti-discrimination laws, including accusations that they had tolerated antisemitism.
Let’s skip the idea that demanding individuals’ SAT scores and grade-point averages along with race have nothing to do with the campus experience of Jewish or Muslim students, and that the analysis of this information from many or all colleges is a daunting task given that Trump fired nearly everyone who worked at the National Center for Education Statistics
It has everything to do with Trump’s political muscle in abusing the power of his office in private businesses and organizations and with perceived attempts to evade Supreme Court rulings against affirmative-action college admissions dependent on race. We can expect more legal action against colleges.
In short, this is a path Trump is opening for a remade “civil rights” division in Justice and a hollowed-out Education Department to more gotcha’s with universities. Team Trump sees reliance on essays that describe overcoming obstacles or inclusion of after-school activities as giving hints of racial identity that allow universities to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling against consideration of race.
To counter what this government sees as “woke” policies regarding identity, The Trump administration is pushing college admissions offices toward what it regards as “merit-based” processes like SAT scores and grades, both of which have been criticized for bias based on the usual social-economic concerns about where one grows up and how.
Building ‘Community’
We could debate affirmative action’s vision and execution or discuss the shortcomings of those “merit-based” measures. But what interests me today is what Trump recognizes as “community” formed from hiring and promotion in government, businesses and colleges.
At heart, there is a fundamental question here about whether Trump recognizes the pluralistic nature of America.
The colleges Trump is targeting get thousands of applications each year from students who did well at their high schools. Otherwise they would not even apply. The college application process is a mysterious winnowing mix not only to admit students expected to succeed, but also to create a mix of populations that will encourage creative thought.
College classes need great minds, of course, but they also need an oboe player or two, male and female basketball and volleyball players, geographical diversity, students interested in science, computers and ancient Greek history. In short, even with the limitations of the 2023 Supreme Court decision, a college admissions office is assembling a community.
Whatever else can be said about SAT scores, they are no measure of community. They have proved not even to be a measure of finishing college or success on any measure. They are a good measure of performance from those who had the money and time to enroll in SAT prep courses.
So the first thing we hear about the records that the Trump government wants to review as race-free turns out to be a racial profile of the entering SAT scores.
Nationally, of the high school graduates who scored between 1400 and 1600 on the SAT in 2024, the highest possible scores, 1 percent were African American, and 27 percent were Asian, according to the College Board, the private organization that administers the test. About 12 percent of students taking the test were Black and 10 percent were Asian. Those numbers contribute to the criticisms that there are unfair score gaps by race and class.
Among first-year undergraduates entering Columbia in fall 2024, 39 percent were Asian and 12 percent were Black. In 2024, 30 percent were Asian and 20 percent Black. At Brown, Asian and White first-year enrollment went up from fall 2023 to fall 2024, while Hispanic and Black enrollment decreased.
What have we learned, other than students of all races applying to Columbia and Brown probably did well on tests and grade-point averages. Did we learn whether there were potential exceptional students in theater or dance, another Bill Gates in the computer science area, or someone who might launch a conservative political newsletter? No.
Numerically easy questions produce simplistic answers.
A president who chooses to involve himself in these questions might ask his advisers what can be done to improve Black or Latino achievement reflected on these tests, not to rubber-stamp a system that continues racial disparity.
In fact, in recognition of multiple kinds of intelligence, there is no single test for individual success or towards creating a community that bubbles with ideas and creativity. In its zeal against “wokeness,” Trump will create college communities that only encourage individual competitiveness.
Is Team Trump Merit-Based?
Let’s apply the same merit-based test to Trump’s government and his hiring. For Trump, he has made no secret that the top merit test is loyalty to Trump, not test scores or grade-point averages.
Trump certainly does not recognize experience in hiring or we would not have Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stumbling nearly daily at the Pentagon. We would not have Linda McMahon, a former owner of a wrestling business, as the person now charged with reviewing the operations of these colleges. Most of the Cabinet and agencies directors follow the same pattern. A photo of Trump advisors shows nearly all White men as the group that makes decisions for a pluralistic society.
Do you think the big banks, real estate developers, technology companies are asking applicants about their high-school test scores? Indeed, the thought is ludicrous.
The anti-woke campaign, which seeks some kind of society in which race, gender, identity or orientation is never mentioned, is racist, misogynist and anti-gay at its core. By seeking to neuter any distinctions between people towards what it sees as a merit-based society, it is aimed at erasing America as a salad bowl of difference for a homogeneous White, Christian, straight, male-dominated society.
I worked in the news business, entering at a time when we only had begun to recognize that a mostly male, White, straight and urban newsroom was ill-equipped to tell stories from ethnic neighborhoods, or that arose in rural areas, that effectively reflected women’s concerns, and the like. The issue was how best to train journalists of color or from different backgrounds, about how to make difference and tolerance a daily part of our newsroom community. The goal of diversity was not about race; it was about succeeding as news organization.
Monitoring colleges to admit the top SAT scorers is simple. It’s just that you might not like the resulting inability to field a sports team or to support an orchestra or to evoke critical thought through debate. We don’t even know who in the Trump administration will review this data from colleges and what they will do with the results that an artificial intelligence numerical data run will tell them.
If improving colleges were the real goal here, we wouldn’t be talking about SAT scores.
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