Florida sues Department of Education to put a check on accreditation agencies

The state of Florida is suing the Biden administration to curtail the power of higher education accreditation agencies.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed the suit against the Department of Education last week in the federal Southern District of Florida. The suit alleges that the Department has allowed accrediting agencies to wield unchecked power, which they have used to harm Florida colleges.

“[I]n higher education, Congress has ceded unchecked power to private accrediting agencies to dictate education standards to colleges and universities, and it has forbidden the U.S. Department of Education (the Department)from meaningfully reviewing, approving, or rejecting those standards,” the complaint reads. 

[RELATED: Rep. Jim Banks: Anti-DEI bill is the first step to ‘reform or replace the accreditation cartel’]

Furthermore, the complaint alleges that accrediting agencies use this power to apply their own standards to individual colleges and universities, with only limited judicial review. These standards are inescapable, because all colleges need to be accredited to receive federal funding, and a college needs a “reasonable cause” to change accreditors. As a result, these agencies are gatekeepers to $112 billion in federal student aid whose oversight effectively carries the weight of the federal government with it.

The complaint takes particular issue with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS), which oversees all of Florida’s higher education institutions. The state alleges that on multiple occasions, SACS wielded its authority force it to back off of several actions:

In 2011, Governor Rick Scott publicly called for the President of Florida A&M (FAMU) to be suspended over a hazing incident that killed a marching band member. SACS responded by threatening FAMU’s accreditation if it followed his direction. 

Then in 2013, SACS threatened the accreditation of the University of Florida, after Scott asked then-president Bernie Machen to postpone his retirement.

In 2021, SACS threatened the accreditation of Florida State University because the state Board of Governors was considering Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to become President. According to the complaint, despite overseeing all of Florida’s schools, Corcoran lacked “appropriate experience and qualifications” to oversee a single university. 

“In SACS’s view, ‘[g]overning boards are the ones that are responsible for ensuring the well-being of the institution, not the governor, not legislators, not Jane and John Citizen,’” the complaint says. 

Florida also takes issue with the Department of Education’s (ED) mishandling of the accreditation system. In 2020, the Trump administration revised ED regulations to encourage competition; in response, Florida passed Senate Bill 7044, requiring colleges and universities to change accreditors, in 2021.

The Biden administration’s ED responded to the law by issuing new guidance imposing stricter standards on the ability of individual schools to switch accreditors, specifically targeted against SB 7044. The same day as the new guidance was rolled out, a senior ED official published a blog post attacking SB 7044 and saying that the new guidance “aims to protect against a race to the bottom and ensure that accreditation remains a voluntary process.” Several Florida schools are currently being forced to jump through hoops by the ED, the complaint alleges, and more than half of state schools still need to change accreditors in the next two years; but they cannot because of stonewalling from the ED. Meanwhile SACS continues to wield its influence over Florida.

[RELATED: Republican senators introduce bill to ban DEI requirements for university accreditation]

Florida alleges that the accreditation system violates the private non-delegation doctrine, which prevents Congress from delegating legislative powers to private entities. The state also claims that it violates Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the “Appointments Clause”– as well as Article I, Section 8, the “Spending Clause.” The state also alleges that the ED has violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

The state is requesting that the court declare the accreditation requirements unconstitutional, remove them from the law, and permanently block the ED from enforcing the requirements against Florida. If not that, Florida wants the court to strike down the limits on changing accreditors; if not that, permanently block ED from enforcing the limits; if not that, hold the ED’s guidance as unlawful.

Campus Reform reached out to the Florida Attorney General’s office for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.