Last weekend, Barbara Gellman-Danley urged a ballroom full of academics to resist despair and not to abandon their jobs or the mission of higher education.
“I ask you now to rage, rage against the dying of the light,” said Gellman-Danley, the longtime president of the Higher Learning Commission, an accrediting organization that oversees some 950 colleges in 19 states.
Quoting Dylan Thomas’s famous villanelle about confronting death might seem out of place for a meeting about accreditation, which is typically focused on more mundane matters like assessing student learning, developing a culture of compliance on campus, and writing the hundreds of pages of narrative to describe how an institution meets particular standards.
But the Trump administration’s efforts to penalize colleges and even individual students have pushed the entire sector into a fearful crouch, and accreditors expect to be among the next targets of the president’s agenda to reshape higher education.
A big question for accreditors — which act as the gatekeepers of federal financial aid and must maintain government recognition — is how far the administration will go to force them to eliminate the standards that seek to hold colleges accountable for creating diverse and welcoming campuses.
Accreditors anticipate President Trump to issue an executive order on accreditation in the coming weeks, according to several speakers at the meeting. The specifics remain unclear, but the order is expected to take aim at DEI, make it easier for institutions to change accreditors, and ease the creation of new ones. Neither the White House nor the Education Department responded to requests for comment.
In a telling sign of the political dynamics, the Higher Learning Commission approved revised standards last summer — placing more emphasis on institutional mission and less on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The commission has numerous member institutions from states with laws that prohibit public colleges from taking actions on DEI goals. So the policy shift is a matter of responding to change and listening to the members, Gellman-Danley said. “Higher education has been around a very long time,” she said, “and we have to adapt. And sometimes it’s harder to adapt.”
In a new statement on its website, the commission explains that it will work with member colleges to navigate any conflicts with state or federal entities, “to identify these situations and limit the burden on the institution.”
The pressures from both state and federal policymakers have forced the commission to walk a fine line: trying not to water down their approach while not forcing member colleges to have to choose between following state laws and meeting the accreditor’s requirements.
Does DEI Still Matter?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion still featured prominently at the commission’s meeting. Several sessions included open discussions on DEI, with titles like “Grading for Equity,” and “More than Just Words: DEI Action and Civic Engagement.”
The organization’s internal strategic plan, using the acronym “EVOLVE,” also explicitly endorses equity, proclaiming that it “should permeate not only all levels of institutions (e.g., students, staff, faculty, and governing boards) but also their accreditors.”
But there were signs that the accreditor and its members are responding to the political moment and taking steps to avoid possible reprisals from federal and state officials. The commission’s members include colleges from six states that have passed laws banning public colleges from supporting DEI programs or staff, including Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and North Dakota.
In addition, several public colleges in Florida and North Carolina, where lawmakers also enacted anti-DEI laws, are seeking membership in the Higher Learning Commission. Both states passed laws requiring public institutions to leave their current accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Among the nation’s seven major accreditors, SACS is the only one that does not require its members to show a commitment to DEI.
And just last month, Kansas approved legislation that explicitly forbids accreditors from compelling public or private colleges to violate state law.
Meanwhile, this week’s conference included a presentation by three vocal critics of DEI, including Scott Yenor, a political-science professor at Boise State University and a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank.
At one point, Yenor claimed that merit and DEI were incompatible. “It is difficult to maintain high standards of achievement and learning when the goal of the institution is to erase racial discrimination, or disparities,” he said. “The result is grade inflation and lower learning.” Several attendees yelled back in protest and dozens left the session.
“DEI is based on a rejection of our heritage,” Yenor continued. “It prefers a multicultural country where we emphasize and celebrate differences and try to make heritage Americans feel guilty about American accomplishments.”
Yenor was nominated by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as a trustee at the University of West Florida, and in January, he was elected board chair. He stepped down this week after bipartisan criticism of comments he made about women and Jewish people.
Even before Trump was elected, the Higher Learning Commission was set to change what it requires of its member colleges on DEI. New criteria that will apply to members starting in September remove explicit mentions of equity and inclusion from standards on “mission” and “teaching and learning.”
Under the revised standard for “mission,” member colleges must demonstrate that they “provide opportunities for civic engagement in a diverse, multicultural society and globally connected world, as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves.”
What will be eliminated are two subcomponents requiring that a college’s “processes and activities demonstrate inclusive and equitable treatment of diverse populations,” and that the institution “fosters a climate of respect among all students, faculty, staff, and administrators from a range of diverse backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives.”
The association has also altered its standard for teaching and learning, removing a requirement to provide an education that recognizes “human and cultural diversity” and another that requires that a college’s faculty and staff reflect “human diversity as appropriate within its mission and for the constituencies it serves.”
The commission is not the first to modify its approach to DEI. The American Bar Association and American Psychological Association have both suspended their DEI standards for member institutions.
In December, the WASC Senior College and University Commission considered eliminating its DEI requirements, but its members quickly rejected that move.
Changing Terms
For now, at least, views like Yenor’s are ascendent in the nation’s politics, and colleges and associations are weighing whether and how to fight back.
In response, some speakers said at the commission’s meeting, campus leaders and advocates should do a better job of explaining what DEI is, and perhaps not use the acronym or other bureaucratic terms that can be easily misinterpreted.
In a keynote presentation on how to improve student success, Charles L. Welch, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said higher education has to let go of “flowery language” and “do a better job of defining our support services and showing that what we are doing is not discriminating against white males, but it’s really lifting up everybody that needs that extra support.”
“We may have to change the terms,” Welch added. “We can’t change our values, we can’t stop focusing on those that need it the most. And we’ve got to separate ourselves from all this political rhetoric.”
Trump’s anticipated executive order on accreditation would be consistent with the president’s agenda and his statements about accreditation during his 2024 campaign, when he pledged to “fire the radical left accreditors” and create agencies that require a focus on Western civilization and nationalist values.
While all of those changes would require either legislation or new regulations, the administration has shown little restraint in taking action outside the bounds of established procedures, Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, said during a presentation.
The commission will evaluate its options when an executive order is released and work with the government to get some clarity about what is expected, Gellman-Danley said: “We respect all the administrations we work with.”
In her opening remarks, Gellman-Danley pledged that the commission, too, will “not go gentle into that good night.”
But taking on the federal government may be a different matter.
