Dive Brief:
- Some higher education experts slammed President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to reshape the accreditation system, raising warnings about government intrusion into academic matters, while the accreditation sector defended its work.
- The president took aim at accreditor criteria related to diversity and equity while calling for new requirements of what he called “intellectual diversity” in faculty. He also called on U.S. Secretary Linda McMahon to “resume recognizing new accreditors to increase competition and accountability.”
- The order was part of a bevy of higher education-related executive orders that Trump signed late Wednesday night affecting different aspects of the sector, including workforce development and historically Black colleges.
Dive Insight:
In his order on accreditation, Trump decried the quality-control bodies as “the gatekeepers that decide which colleges and universities American students can spend the more than $100 billion in Federal student loans and Pell Grants dispersed each year.”
He accused the organizations of having “failed in this responsibility to students, families, and American taxpayers,” and also of having “abused their enormous authority.”
In the order, Trump launched into a 350-word castigation of accreditors’ diversity, equity and inclusion criteria.
He specifically named the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical programs, and the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which accredits law schools.
The ABA is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations the department canceled federal grants as retaliation for the association “taking positions the current Administration disfavors,” including its diversity requirements.
“Federal recognition will not be provided to accreditors engaging in unlawful discrimination in violation of Federal law,” Trump said in the order, without specifying which DEI criteria and laws may come in conflict.
Trump also directed McMahon to hold accreditors “accountable” by denying, monitoring, suspending or terminating of accreditation powers for those who “fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law.”
His order specifically mandates that accreditors require institutions to use program data on student outcomes “without reference to race, ethnicity, or sex.”
Other elements of the order would smooth the path for federal recognition of new accreditors.
The order also includes a provision directing McMahon to ensure “institutions support and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty in order to advance academic freedom, intellectual inquiry, and student learning.”
Trump also issued executive orders Wednesday on workforce development, artificial intelligence, foreign funding reporting requirements for colleges, and historically Black colleges and universities.
Trump’s accreditation order drew a fierce rebuke from the American Association of University Professors, among others.
Accreditors have been “important mechanisms for ensuring that academic institutions are accessible and inclusive, and provide high-quality education for all students,” the faculty group said in a statement Wednesday.
It added, “This executive order, however, uses the administration’s cruel and absurdist weaponization of antidiscrimination and civil rights law to prevent accrediting agencies from requiring that institutions take basic steps to ensure they are accessible to and inclusive of all students.”
AAUP President Todd Wolfson described the order’s call for “intellectual diversity” as “code for a partisan agenda that will muzzle faculty who do not espouse Trump’s ideological agenda.”
Sameer Gadkaree, president of The Institute for College Access & Success, similarly condemned the order, saying that it “undermines the aspects of the accreditation process that are designed to protect classroom instruction from political interference.”
Gadkaree also panned the order’s ban on using demographic data to evaluate programs, warning that without that option “accreditors — along with researchers, evaluators, and policymakers — will lack the information they need to truly assess quality.”
Responses from the accreditation sector were quieter, but they defended the work of accreditors.
Accreditor’s DEI standards are “predicated on institutions implementing such requirements in accordance with applicable state and federal laws,” the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions said in a statement Wednesday.
C-RAC called for the order’s required changes to be worked out through the Education Department’s negotiated rulemaking process, which brings together higher education representatives to hash out policy details. The organization also pointed to the regulated process for removing accreditor recognition, noting, “Ultimately, concerns about accreditor recognition can be escalated to federal court.”
The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an industry group that both vets and advocates for accrediting bodies, issued a statement Wednesday largely describing the work, standards and innovation already in place at accreditors and institutions.
“Our focus is and always will be academic assurances,” said Cynthia Jackson Hammond, the organization’s president. “CHEA-recognized accreditation organizations meet those standards.”
She closed by saying, “The independence of the accreditation process is essential in order to preserve and protect the integrity of quality assurance in higher education.”
