Scenes from The University of South Carolina’s Horseshoe in Columbia, S.C. in October of 2024. (Photo by Travis Bell/SIDELINE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
In conjunction with other southern states, Florida is developing a new university accrediting commission in response to existing agencies the governor says require schools to “bend the knee” to get accredited.
During a Thursday news conference at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced, alongside State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and university leaders from Texas and South Carolina, that the states are developing a Commission for Public Higher Education.
DeSantis has focused heavily on “woke” ideologies by pushing legislation to ban state spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and remaking state higher education institutions to be more conservative.
In the way of his higher education initiatives, he has said, are accrediting agencies that may require a commitment to those values or other expectations for a university to be recognized.
In order to “shape institutions in a positive way,” DeSantis said, “You gotta go two or three levels down sometimes. And we’ve identified this accreditation cartel as an issue for a long time.”
Florida is establishing the commission with the University System of Georgia, the University of North Carolina system, University of South Carolina, the University of Tennessee system, and the Texas A&M University system, which DeSantis said will “upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels.”
The layers, for example, can be shown by a 2023 law, SB 266, which outlawed state spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion, but allowed for DEI initiatives to continue if required to maintain accreditation.
DeSantis, who used to own an LSAT prep company, said during the “woke era” “institutions really became corrupted by ideology, and they were putting ideology ahead of the pursuit of truth during COVID.”
Why is USC involved?
Thad Westbrook, board president for the University of South Carolina, joined Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as leaders of state schools in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, at this week’s news conference announcing the initiative to form a new accreditation agency.
Referring to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits schools across the Southeast, DeSantis blasted what he called the “woke accreditation cartel,” which has been “hijacked by radical ideology.”
But Westbrook sidestepped such rhetoric in explaining what drew USC to this new partnership.
Rather than criticize the accrediting agency for anything specific, he described accreditation and re-accreditation, which colleges must go through every five years, as “a very burdensome process.”
He told the SC Daily Gazette that USC could benefit from an accreditation agency tailored to large state college systems, “more peer-to-peer instead of a one-size-fits all” organization that covers the entire region. By joining this partnership, South Carolina’s largest university will have a seat on the governing board as it creates its standards for accreditation.
Westbrook said he wants to see standards focused on student outcomes. In particular, he wants to see increases in the number of students who graduate college within four years or less, progressing through as quickly as possible and entering the workforce.
He said he thinks some accreditation agencies stray from what’s required under the federal Higher Education Act. He said the new agency will still have rigorous standards but won’t go beyond what the law demands.
Westbrook said the costs of applying to become an accrediting agency will be borne by the state of Florida. If the accrediting agency gets federal approval, USC will only pay a membership fee if its governing board votes to leave SACS and apply for accreditation through the new organization.
For USC faculty, the impact of the arrangement is less clear.
Faculty Senate President Wayne Outten, who teaches biochemistry, said professors and researchers are typically less concerned about which accrediting agency a college uses. When deciding whether to apply for a job, they usually weigh a college’s reputation, salaries and resources for research.
But with so few details available on the new agency, possible effects are unknown at this time.
_SC Daily Gazette reporter Jessica Holdman
Timeline
DeSantis did not lay out a timeline for when the commission would be up and running, acknowledging that it has to meet federal requirements before the U.S. Department of Education can approve it.
“We’re establishing it. You kind of got to go and actually do it for, you know, some period of time,” DeSantis said, adding, “I think U.S. DOE wants to be quick on this.”
DeSantis said he nudged Rodrigues shortly after Trump won the presidency.
“We didn’t really have the prospects of launching anything like this successfully during the Biden years, but it’s a new day, and I think this is going to make a big, big difference,” DeSantis said, adding that if it gets established during the Trump presidency, “then it’s almost impossible for a future federal administration to try to upend the apple cart.”
As recently as 2020, the year after DeSantis took office, the State University System of Florida created a workgroup that, in its final report, concluded that the universities’ “Board of Governors is making a clear and steadfast commitment to prioritize and support diversity, racial and gender equity, and inclusion.”
In 2022, Florida lawmakers approved and DeSantis signed SB 7044 to provoke institutions to seek accreditation from accreditors approved by the State Board of Education or Board of Governors.
Expecting favorability
“I think almost all the states in our region are going to be favorable to this,” DeSantis said.
“All those states have done good stuff in higher ed anyways but, you know, it’s been more difficult when you have this accreditation cartel nipping at you all the time,” he said. “You know, now I think it’s going to be really, really smooth sailing.”
Florida’s and other southern state institutions are members of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. DeSantis and Rodrigues made jabs at SACSCOC, saying Florida institutions have problems with the accrediting organization and that its member schools’ performance has not been impressive.
“The Commission for Public Higher Education will offer an accreditation model that prioritizes academic excellence and student success while removing ideological bias and unnecessary financial burdens. These reforms will benefit our faculty, our students, and the hardworking taxpayers who fund our public systems,” Rodrigues said.
In an emailed statement to the Phoenix, SACSCOC said, “We welcome any new accreditor as they go through a rigorous approval process. Accreditation is central to quality education; thus accreditors are held to high standards and must themselves be reviewed.”
“As for SACSCOC, we know we currently accredit institutions that serve the largest number of students in the country (approximately 5M),” the organization said. “As such, we will work with our partnering institutions to ensure and strengthen a high standard of accreditation that reflects the needs of students, our institutions, and the workforce.”
DeSantis complained that Florida law schools “should not be captive to having to bend the knee to get accreditation from” the American Bar Association, which he said “mandates explicit DEI compliance as a condition of accreditation” and “has now become a far left activist group.” The association has suspended its DEI standard until at least 2026.
The commission “will create a first-of-its-kind accreditation model for public higher education institutions that will offer high-quality, efficient services prioritizing academic excellence, student outcomes, and achievement,” according to the State University System.
“Together, we are leaving behind the legacy systems and failed institutions of the past, while charting a new course in higher education, that puts student success at the forefront of everything that we do,” said Florida Atlantic University President Adam Hasner, who was recently named to that position following outcry from students who feared he would politicize the position.
Union backlash
The Florida Education Association and United Faculty of Florida released a joint statement following DeSantis’ announcement, saying they “strongly oppose” the move as “directly threatens the independence, integrity, and academic credibility of the state’s higher education system.”
“Accreditation matters because it’s the backbone of academic freedom, shared governance, and public trust in the quality of our institutions,” UFF President Teresa M. Hodge said in a news release.
“This proposed state accreditor appears designed to align more with political priorities rather than academic independence. It seems to be the state’s latest attempt to exert top-down control over what faculty can teach and what students are allowed to learn.”
Andrew Spar, president of the FEA, said he is concerned about how a new accreditor might affect teacher preparation programs.
“Students learn best when they’re free to learn and educators are free to teach — not when curriculum decisions are dictated by politics,” Spar said.
The commission’s announced core principles:
It is appropriate and necessary to introduce competition, aligned with state and institutional needs, into the existing marketplace of university accreditation.
It is in the best interests of all interested parties, including students, to launch an accrediting body comprised of true peer institutions focused on public colleges and universities and their governing university systems.
It is imperative to reduce bureaucracy through a more efficient and focused accreditation process, which will result in lower costs and significant time savings for member institutions, and which will translate into lower tuition prices for students and families.
It is critical to ensure that this new accrediting body is accountable to the states of the member institutions.
It is necessary for the new accrediting body to become and remain recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for the purposes of Title IV participation by its accredited institutions.
Like the SC Daily Gazette, Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.