DeSantis admin sues U.S. Education Department over college accreditation rules
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to a crowd on June 2 in Gilbert, South Carolina. Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that state officials are suing the U.S. Department of Education over its college accreditation process.
Driving the news: The lawsuit accuses the Biden administration of abusing federal power by withholding federal funding from public colleges and universities that don't get approval from private accrediting bodies.
- It claims the Education Department is "unconstitutionally" collaborating with such bodies to block his efforts to "bring increased transparency and accountability to public colleges and universities."
- The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, seeks to strip private accreditors of their authority in Florida’s higher education reform.
Catch up quick: Last year, DeSantis signed legislation requiring colleges and universities to seek accreditation from different accreditors in consecutive cycles.
- The governor and 2024 presidential hopeful claims that before that legislation, accrediting agencies had a monopoly and "were able to control their operations by threatening to withhold accreditation if an institution didn’t adhere to the ideological agenda promoted by its accreditor."
- The Department of Education then issued three "guidance documents," including a letter reiterating the standards the agency would apply to determine whether an institution has reasonable cause to change accreditors.
What he's saying: "I will not allow Joe Biden's Department of Education to defund America’s #1 higher education system all because we refuse to bow to unaccountable accreditors who think they should run Florida’s public universities," DeSantis said in a statement Thursday.
The other side: "Governor DeSantis is now bringing his culture wars, like book bans, to the long-standing system that helps ensure students receive a quality college education," White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan told Axios.
- "If Republican elected officials could have their way, library shelves would be stocked with guns – not books – and curriculums would be loaded with conspiracy theories, not facts," Hasan continued. "These culture wars do nothing to actually help students, and only make things worse.
- "This Administration won’t allow it. We're committed to ensuring all students receive a high-quality education, and will fight this latest effort by opponents to get in the way of that."
