Southern states join forces to break free from ‘woke accreditation cartels’

Southern states banded together Thursday to establish their own accrediting body in higher education in order to “upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels,” according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee formed the Commission for Public Higher Education, a consortium of six public universities offering a new accreditation model.

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.”

DeSantis said at a press conference at Florida Atlantic University that there was a need for “alternative accreditation.”

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DeSantis said that the commission will “upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels, and it will provide institutions with an alternative that focuses on student achievement, rather than the ideological fads that have so permeated those accrediting bodies over the years.”

He explained further that the accreditation process affects undergraduate schools as well as law and medical schools. He said that accrediting bodies were trying to deny credentials to Florida institutions that prohibited diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming on their campuses.

“The accreditors are telling them they have to do these things. So, when we said, ‘No DEI,’ the accreditors are telling these universities, ‘No, no, no, you’re not going to get accredited unless you do DEI.’ Who the heck are they to say what our universities have to do? They’re telling them they can’t follow state law? Are you kidding me? Nobody elected them to make that judgment at all. 

“What we’ve seen develop is an accreditation cartel and the accreditors by-and-large are all singing from the same sheet of music and it’s not what the state of Florida wants to see reflected in its universities in many different respects.”

He added that the process “requires approval” from the current Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Education and that the accreditation overhaul agenda would not have passed under the Biden administration. 

“They believe in overhauling this accreditation process. They want to have new blood in the system. They want to have competing accreditors,” DeSantis said about the Trump administration.

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When reached for comment, a Department of Education spokesperson pointed Fox News Digital to President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in April that called for accountability and reform to the accreditation process in higher education after past accrediting bodies “abused their enormous authority.” 

The Executive Order cited accredited institutions offering “undergraduate and graduate programs with a negative return on investment” and compelling the “adoption of discriminatory ideology, rather than on student outcomes” in order to access federal aid.

DeSantis said the members of the new accrediting body have been working with the Department of Education to expedite the process of acquiring approval from the federal government.

“We need these things approved and implemented during President Trump’s term of office, because the reality is, if it doesn’t get approved and stick during that time, you can have a president come in next and potentially revoke it, and they could probably do that very quickly,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis predicted that more conservative states in the South will seek to gain accreditation from the new body.

A Florida education official sent Fox News Digital the following statement:

“I am proud to be joined by leaders of five other public university systems to establish an accreditor that will focus on ensuring institutions provide high-quality, high-value programs, use student data to drive decisions, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process,” Chancellor Ray Rodrigues of the State University System of Florida said.