Republicans Threaten to Remove Colleges’ Accreditation Over Civil Rights Violations

Republicans in the House are renewing and ratcheting up their threats to take away colleges’ federal financial aid over civil rights violations, particularly regarding antisemitism on campus, and warning institutions that their accreditation is on the line.

“President Trump has made it clear day one, if you’re a college that is violating the civil rights of your students, we’re taking away your accreditation,” Representative Steve Scalise said earlier this month in a video obtained by The Guardian and posted last week. “We have that ability.”

However, several experts told Inside Higher Ed that’s not the case; only accreditors—not the Education Department—can decide whether a college is accredited, though the department does recognize accrediting agencies. That recognition in turn allows the institutions those accreditors recognize to access federal financial aid dollars.

“The only way the department would have a say in accreditation issues is if it’s for an entire agency, but if you are concerned about what one particular institution is doing, you’re not going to go after the accreditor because that would impact the hundreds or thousands of institutions they accredit,” said Antoinette Flores, who recently worked at the Education Department and oversaw accreditation issues and policy development. Flores is now director of higher education accountability and quality at New America, a left-leaning think tank.

Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who is the majority leader in the House, added in the video that the House lawmakers are also exploring ways to cut off colleges' federal funding from student aid to research dollars if they find that the institutions violated students’ civil rights.

Several House committees are investigating at least 10 colleges for what they consider an insufficient response to antisemitism on campus, inquiries lawmakers have said could lead to the loss of federal funding, though that would be an unprecedented move.

“There’s a lot of levers and tools that will get [colleges’] attention day one,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, according to The Guardian. “We’ve had the hearings. We’ve got it teed up. This President is choosing not to use these tools. The tools are there.”

Scalise’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the video or for more information about the authority the Congressman is referring to.

Senator JD Vance, the Ohio Republican who is former President Donald Trump’s running mate, said at an event marking the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack that the administration would hold universities accountable if they use “federal money to harass Jewish students.”

“We’re going after accreditation and federal support of colleges that won’t look out for their own students,” he said.

That promise echoed a comment Trump made in September in which he said that institutions “must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” according to Reuters.

Republicans have increasingly focused on the accreditation system as an area ripe for overhaul. Trump declared that his secret weapon to reclaim colleges and universities from the “radical Left” was the college accreditation system and vowed to “fire” the accreditors. Leaders of the agencies have defended their efforts to protect academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

But firing the current accreditors and replacing them with new agencies would take a lot of time. The recent comments from Trump, Vance and Scalise point to a more immediate but seemingly empty threat.

Jamienne Studley, president of WASC Senior College and University Commission, echoed Flores, saying the president can't take away a college’s accreditation.

“Only an accrediting agency can do that, for failure to meet its standards and after going through required procedures,” Studley said, adding that Congress could change the Higher Education Act if it wanted to end recognition of accrediting agencies or revise the criteria colleges have to meet.  

She added that accreditors don’t make a determination based “on a single event or action or problem.” If concerns about civil rights violations are raised at an institution, the accreditor will likely follow up and get more information about compliance with accrediting requirements.

“We would consider that in the overall picture we’re looking at,” she said.

Flores at New America attributed Scalise’s comments to “genuine confusion about various efforts going on in Congress to address student protests.” That includes legislation that recently passed the House to prohibit accreditors from creating standards based on any “ideology, belief, or viewpoint.” The bill would require colleges to follow new free speech measures; failure to do so could result in the loss of federal financial aid.

Michael Brickman, education policy director at the Cicero Institute and an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that institutions are obligated to uphold the civil rights of their students, but only accreditors can decide whether a college is accredited.

“An administration should be holding accreditors accountable for upholding their standards,” he said, adding that accreditors could potentially revoke a college’s accreditation over civil rights violations.

Brickman said that Scalise’s comments show that accreditation is one of several levers that the department could pull to hold colleges accountable.

“There should be a list of things,” he said. “Institutions not upholding their students’ civil rights should absolutely be scared of losing their accreditation.”

He criticized the current administration’s approach to combating campus antisemitism and protecting Jewish students’ civil rights as “incredibly weak.”

“The current Office for Civil Rights is letting these institutions off the hook, giving them the slightest slap on the wrist,” he said.