Colleges Say GOP Bill to Protect Free Speech Would Do the Opposite
HEADLINES
Colleges Say GOP Bill to Protect Free Speech Would Do the Opposite (Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2024) The accreditation provisions, which take up five pages, would restrict accreditors from creating standards based on any “ideology, belief, or viewpoint.” This change is aimed at preventing accrediting agencies from requiring the colleges and universities that they oversee to set policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some accreditors, in recent years, have issued warning letters to colleges related to their outcomes for marginalized students. Cynthia Jackson Hammond, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, told Inside Higher Ed in a statement that the legislation strips accreditors of their “independence to implement standards that support institutions and quality assurance.”
“Accrediting organizations should not be subjected to political preferences that erode the historical construct of institutional autonomy,” Hammond said.
Top Higher Education Conferences in 2025 (Higher Ed Dive, October 1, 2024) Higher education professionals, from academics and advisers to presidents and provosts, are facing major sector-wide challenges. Financial aid administrators, for instance, are grappling with the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Top college leaders, meanwhile, are dealing with enrollment challenges and student protests. This year’s theme for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s annual conference is “Quality Assurance in an Era of Change: Reflect, Reimagine, Recommit.”
Squeezed From Both Sides (Chronicle of Higher Education, September 24, 2024) Two-thirds of Americans think higher education is going in the wrong direction, including nearly half of Democrats, according to a recent Gallup survey. While Republican criticism of college is frequently portrayed as a blue-collar grievance, Isaac A. Kamola, an associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Connecticut, said many of the actual policy proposals — like legislation opposing critical race theory or weakening accreditation — are drafted by groups with longstanding beef with higher education. Now there are efforts to chip away at tenure protections and accreditors’ authority.
A New Bill Aims to Make Defrauded GI Bill Vets Whole Again. Will It? (Gannett, AOL.com, September 20, 2024) David Thibodeau, an Army National Guardsman who accrued $83,000 in federal student loan debt after attending DeVry University said, “We rely on that accreditation process to vet these schools for us.” Thibodeau added, “We see they’re accredited; we assume there’s been some due diligence that these schools are legitimate…I’d like to see some accountability there.”
Iowa Board of Regents Begins Review of University DEI Programs for Compliance with Law (Military Times, September 23, 2024) The involved board members, alongside board staff and university leaders, reviewed state and federal laws and accreditation standards for the colleges, Iowa Board of Regents President Sherry Bates said, and are now conducting a “unit-by-unit analysis” of DEI programs and positions to identify those required by law or accreditors and those that need another look with the possibility of making changes.
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