Attorney general alleges federal accreditation process holds colleges ‘hostage’
A federal judge dismissed a Florida lawsuit Wednesday challenging the federal government’s accreditation process for higher education institutions.
The lawsuit, filed last year by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, argues the federal government unconstitutionally “requires public postsecondary schools to submit to private accreditors to qualify for federal funding.”
However, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra granted the Biden administration’s request to dismiss the case this week, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
“[Florida’s] sweeping criticism of the legislative scheme by which the federal government provides students with financial aid for their postsecondary education collapses distinct functions of the process, disregards undisputed facts, and then uses legal standards that are not controlling to urge the court to deny the motion,” Becerra wrote.
The judge said Moody’s office may file a revised lawsuit, if it chooses, according to the report:
“The state, of course, is not without recourse,” Becerra wrote. “It can seek to change the law in Congress, provide its own funding to students attending its schools, or compete in the marketplace without the use of federal funds, just to list a few examples. But this court is only empowered to look at the facts as they are plead, not rhetorical conclusions, and then apply the law as it exists, not as the state would like it to be. By those lights, what the state presented, at least in this complaint, cannot stand.” …
Moody’s office filed the lawsuit last year after clashes between state officials and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the longtime accrediting agency for colleges and universities in Florida.
The lawsuit, for example, cited a dispute involving the accrediting agency’s president, Belle Wheelan, in 2021 taking issue with the possibility of then-state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran becoming president of Florida State University. Corcoran did not get the FSU job but is now president at New College of Florida.
In 2022, the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a bill requiring public universities and colleges to periodically change accreditors.
Moody accused “private academic accreditors” of “holding our colleges and universities hostage” in a statement when she filed the lawsuit.
“Thanks to the fearless leadership of Governor DeSantis, we are fighting to take back our public postsecondary education system from unelected private organizations who have no accountability or oversight,” Moody said at the time.
The accreditation process for colleges and universities has drawn criticism from other conservatives as well.
In a 2023 report, the Heritage Foundation urged Congress to reform the Higher Education Act and end accreditors’ stranglehold on institutions, The College Fix reported.
The conservative thinktank argued accreditation “is often a costly process for institutions, while offering little quality control, and it increasingly mandates ‘woke’ university policies.”
MORE: Influential conservative think tank calls on Congress to reform college accreditation
IMAGE: Gov. Ron DeSantis/Facebook
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