President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday, subjecting colleges and universities to a higher level of scrutiny regarding admissions practices. The memo signals the administration’s resolve to sniff out, and snuff out, race- and sex-based considerations in admissions decisions, among other non-merit-based factors—a practice which the memo calls “unlawful,” “shameful,” and “dangerous.”

Aly McDevitt is Data & Research Journalist at Compliance Week. She has a background in education and college consulting. Prior to teaching, she was an editor/author at Thomson Reuters, where she reported...