Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education Date Issued: April 23, 2025 Topic: Education
Executive Order #14279
WHAT DOES THIS EXECUTIVE ORDER DO? This executive order seeks to overhaul the higher education accreditation system while eliminating what it defines as unlawful, discriminatory practices embedded in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards. It argues that accreditors have failed in their responsibility to ensure that colleges and universities provide a meaningful education, citing poor graduation rates, student debt burdens, and low post-graduate earnings. The order asserts that certain accrediting agencies, like the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Council and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, have embedded DEI requirements into their standards for accreditation, pressuring institutions into adopting racial and genderbased criteria in ways that violate federal law and recent Supreme Court decisions, such as Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that race cannot be used as a factor in college admissions. The order sets new accreditation principles emphasizing academic excellence, measurable student outcomes, institutional accountability, and academic freedom. It calls for reducing barriers that limit innovation in higher education and supports the recognition of new accrediting agencies to increase competition and flexibility.
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