Straws in the Wind - Part 208

From Inside Higher Ed: President Donald Trump’s skepticism of the current accreditation system bled into [the] National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) meeting—the first since Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other officials were confirmed. The Trump administration has cast accreditation as beset by alleged woke priorities, a theme repeated [at the meeting] along with pledges to shake up the system. Concerns about a supposed pervasive liberal ideology among such bodies prompted an executive order in April that threatened to strip federal recognition from accreditors that require institutions to engage in unlawful diversity practices...  

[The] meeting began with the election of a new NACIQI chair, a process that required two votes after the 18-member board tied on the first try. After the second vote, Jay Greene, a former senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and sharp critic of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, was named chair. He was among the five Department of Education appointees named in November. Greene promised “to be a fair, even-handed chair” despite the “awkwardness” of the vote, which he won after Jennifer Blum, a Republican appointee abstained after voting against Greene in the election.

The vote was followed by remarks from Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent who was participating in his first NACIQI meeting since being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. (While the meeting was initially scheduled for July, ED postponed it until October, and it was later rescheduled to December because of the lengthy government shutdown in the fall.) “Instead of focusing on student outcomes and accountability to taxpayers, accreditation has functioned as a shield for incumbent institutions, or worse, as a tool for political and ideological enforcement,” Kent said. “We will end the practice of using accreditation as a political weapon. As we correct past abuses, we might be accused of weaponization, but those accusations will be false.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/accreditation/2025/12/17/kent-tells-accreditation-panel-buckle.