In a new administrative order, US President Donald Trump targeted the university accreditation process, a crucial tool for universities receiving federal financial assistance, furthering his administration’s ongoing conflict with prestigious educational institutions like Harvard University, according to The Hill.
The Wall Street Journal described the purchase as an effort to promote “intellectual diversification” on campus and to stop what Trump perceives as “ideological excess” in higher education.
The administrative directive aims to facilitate the transition of accreditors between institutions, encouraging competition in a sector with long been criticized for its rigid bureaucracy and minimal accountability.
” University approval is now a operation controlled by a number of third-party organizations that are, by act, by regulation. White House team secretary May Scharf claimed that many of those third-party accreditors have relied on a “woke ideology” to appoint institutions rather than register institutions based on merit and performance.
According to CNN, the law authorizes the Secretary of Education to keep accreditors guilty, including potential denials, monitoring, expulsion, or termination for subpar work or civil rights violations. Additionally, it gives the Attorney General and the Education Secretary the authority to look into and end unlawful discrimination claims against higher education institutions, including law and medical institutions.
The Trump Domestic Policy Council’s ( DEC ) direction, led by former deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, is a part of a wider transformation of higher education governance. It comes in response to a$ 2.2 billion funding freeze against Harvard that was just announced a year prior, highlighting a growing conflict between Trump’s presidency and prestigious academic institutions regarding concerns about academic freedom, supervision, and alleged political bias.
On Wednesday, the president announced executive orders to implement laws governing foreign gifts to universities, mandate training for students in artificial intelligence, and launch a White House initiative for historically Black colleges and universities ( HBCUs ). Trump referred to the Artificial education press as” that’s a big deal.” ” We are investing actually trillions of dollars in AI.”
The order’s democratic setting is complex. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened to withdraw Harvard’s documentation to enroll international kids unless the university adheres to demands to provide documentation of “illegal and harsh actions” involving foreign students. Harvard must post the records by April 30th, 2025, or risk facing fast consequences, according to the DHS.
Harvard responded in response that it” will not give up their independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” with an enrollment of almost 6,800 international students, or about 27.2 % of its total for 2024–25.
Similar complaints made by Republican leaders in Florida include the government Ron DeSantis, who last year sued the Biden presidency and said he would never “bow to inexplicable accreditors who think they should work Florida’s people universities.”
The decision has sparked concern in scientific circles because a revoke of accreditation may mean the end of federal student loans and Pell grants, which are vital funding sources for both academic institutions and learners.
