Introduction
The activist education establishment uses interlocking bureaucracies to impose ever tighter social justice requirements on public universities without the consent of policymakers or of citizens, and to avoid responsibility for what they’re doing. Accrediting organizations use an administrator from one state university to impose a race preference requirement on the neighboring state university in the name of diversity. The next year they use an administrator from yet another state’s university to return the favor. State legislatures who want effective higher education reform must take back control of the public universities from the accrediting organizations.
They can do so. The accreditation system requires the consent of every accredited institution of higher education. The state government has given the higher education establishment the power to give this consent, but it can take this power back. The state legislature and governor should act together and send official guidance to the college presidents of its public university system. This guidance should direct college presidents to vote for or against any preferred candidate or policy in accreditation organizations. State policymakers can use official guidance to cripple the ability of activists to use accrediting organizations to impose their policies on the public universities.
We provide here a model law that authorizes state policymakers to give instructions to university officials on how to vote in accreditation organizations.
Model Legislative Text
Section A [“Accreditation Autonomy”]
- By adoption of a joint resolution, the Legislature may direct the {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system, each institution of higher education that receives state funding, and any responsible official in each institution of higher education, to cast their votes as members of accrediting organizations for or against any candidate, policy, or any other matter. If the joint resolution is vetoed by the Governor and the veto has not been overridden, the joint resolution shall have no effect.
- If the joint resolution becomes law, that decision shall have the same force and effect of law as agency rules. The {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system, each institution of higher education that receives state funding, and any responsible official in each institution of higher education shall enact all policies and regulations necessary to put that decision into effect immediately; and shall enact or execute no policy or regulation that contravenes that decision.
- Any responsible official in the {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system or an institution of higher education that receives state funding who casts as a vote contrary to the provisions of Section A, Subsection 1 shall be deemed guilty of violating the laws of this State and shall immediately forfeit employment by the {State} public university system.
- No vote contrary to the provisions of this law by the {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system, any institution of higher education that receives state funding, or any responsible official in each institution of higher education, shall give any institutional consent to any candidate, policy, or any other matter, pertaining to an accrediting organization.
Section B [“Severability”]
If any provision of this chapter, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this chapter and the application of its provisions to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected thereby.
The National Association of Scholars, in consultation with other supporters and friends of the Civics Alliance, drafted these model bills to translate into legislative language the principles in the Civics Alliance’s Civics Curriculum Statement & Open Letter. Just as these bills have been drafted with the expectation that different states will modify them as they see fit, they also have been drafted with the expectation that not every supporter of the Civics Alliance will endorse these bills or every part of them. Individual Civics Alliance signatories and supporters should not be assumed to have endorsed these bills, unless they say so explicitly.