Supreme Court Decision Concerning the U.S. Department of Education

Publication Number 120 July 21, 2025

SUPREME COURT DECISION CONCERNING THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

The Supreme Court released a decision that permits the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) to implement its proposed reduction-in-force. This decision will allow the Trump Administration to lay off nearly half of the USDE staff. There is concern that the USDE will not have enough employees remaining to perform its statutory duties. The Office of Postsecondary Education, which oversees higher education and accreditation policy within the USDE, will remain staffed.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies.”

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION COMPLAINT TO ACCREDITORS

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) referred a complaint to the accrediting organizations of Columbia University and Harvard University, alleging that these two institutions do not meet Title VI requirements therefore do not meet accrediting standards. This approach provides the USDE with two opportunities to take action that impact both Columbia and Harvard; one, because the USDE is complaining to their accreditors it can be inferred that both institutions meet the requirements of the program participation agreement, the USDE would have used that as a method to limit their acceptance of federal student aid. Two, if the accreditor fails to provide the response the USDE is seeking, when the accreditors do appear before the USDE for recognition, the USDE can act at that point, potentially limiting the accreditor’s recognition. This is highly unusual.

PROPOSED LEGISLATION

The House of Representatives marked up two bills, which is to say that they reviewed two bills focused on higher education accreditation.

  • HR 2516, which prohibits accreditors from requiring compliance with social justice issues, specifically around DEI. The bill passed in the committee on a party-line vote.
  • HR 4054, The Accreditation Choice and Innovation Act, would allow states to become accreditors. It would prohibit any employee of, or person connected to, an institution accredited by the accrediting organization from serving the accrediting commission that accredits the institution being accredited. It would measure student success on a financial model (income vs cost of the program). It requires common terminology among accreditors, which has been attempted in the past, and the bill would provide a religious provision that is heavily weighted against the accreditor and the USDE. The accreditor would have the burden to prove that they did not remove accreditation because of the institution’s religious mission, and the USDE is required to assume that the institution is correct in its statement that accreditation was removed because of the religious mission. These are among the reasons not to support this bill.

CHEA is supportive of several provisions in the bill. CHEA has suggested: (1) Public disclosure of the reasons for accreditation decisions, (2) That no permission is required from the Secretary of Education for an institution to change accreditors, provided the institution is not currently under sanction, (3) That dual accreditation be permitted, and, (4) That the Transfer of Credit is not denied solely based on the accreditation of the sending institution.
These are provisions that CHEA will continue to support, even though CHEA cannot support the bill in its current form.

NEW ACCREDITOR

Six states; Florida, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, have announced plans to create an accreditor called the Commission for Public Higher Education for their public institutions. Typically, it takes a number of years for an accreditor to be recognized by the USDE. The Trump Executive Order concerning accreditation directs the USDE to develop an accelerated approval process for new accreditors. It is currently unknown how the USDE will implement the executive order and the timeline it will take for these six states to develop the accreditor, hire staff, set their standards, and then complete the review process for several institutions. All these steps must be successfully completed before the new accreditor can apply for recognition. This is why CHEA recognition is especially important.

NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY AND INTEGRITY

The summer National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) meeting has been moved from July to October 2025. This will allow the USDE to appoint new members to the committee as the current USDE members’ terms will have expired. This will change the ideological balance on NACIQI. The public could see some differences in how the NACIQI reviews accrediting organizations for recognition in the future.