Florida - Thursday June 22, 2023: Governor DeSantis has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education seeking to strip private national accrediting agencies of their authority to restrict his education reforms.
Federal law requires colleges and universities to submit to private accreditors to qualify for federal funding. At stake is $112-billion in annual federal student aid. All postsecondary institutions must be accredited by a recognized agency to be eligible for federal funding. As a result, the complaint states that "private accrediting agencies enjoy near limitless power over state institutions," and the lawsuit wants that power declared unconstitutional.
The accrediting agencies named is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS) which is accused of wielding its power "to interfere with the sovereign prerogatives of Florida and other states." As an example, the lawsuit cites what it says was SACS recent threat to the accreditation of Florida State University (FSU) "merely because FSU was considering the State’s Commissioner of Education for university president."
SACS has raised concerns about many of the Governor’s educational reform policies.
Last year, Governor DeSantis signed legislation that requires colleges and universities to seek accreditation from different accreditors in consecutive accreditation cycles. Prior to that legislation, accrediting agencies had a monopoly on Florida colleges and universities and were able to control their operations by threatening to withhold accreditation if an institution didn’t adhere to the ideological agenda promoted by its accreditor.
The new state law now requires over half of Florida’s public colleges and universities to change accreditors in the next two years. Their ability to do so is substantially burdened, if not entirely prevented, by what the lawsuit argues is "the Biden administration’s abuse of the current accreditation scheme."
The U.S. Department of Education responded to this legislation with three “guidance documents” expressly aimed at Florida, including a “dear colleague letter” which “reiterated” the standards the agency would apply to determine whether an institution has “reasonable cause” to change accreditors.
The lawsuit announced today asserts that the federal government’s current accreditation scheme is plainly unlawful under the “private non-delegation doctrine,” which holds that “federal power can be wielded only by the federal government [and] private entities may do so only if they are subordinate to an agency,” as well as other constitutional provisions and federal laws.
"We refuse to bow to unaccountable accreditors who think they should run Florida’s public universities,” said Governor DeSantis in a news release. “Throughout my time in office, I have made it a priority to reorient the mission of our colleges and universities away from purveying destructive ideologies ... the Biden administration’s attempts to block these reforms is an abuse of federal power, and with this lawsuit, we will ensure that Florida’s pursuit of educational excellence will continue.”