Submitted via Regulations.gov

U.S. Department of Education
Office of Postsecondary Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington DC, 20202

Re: Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-1042; RIN 1840-AD82
Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization

To the U.S. Department of Education:

Stand for Campus Freedom respectfully submits these comments on the Department of Education’s proposed regulations governing recognition of higher education accrediting agencies.

Stand for Campus Freedom is a nonpartisan coalition that engages alumni to defend academic freedom, institutional independence, and the role of colleges and universities as centers of open inquiry. Over the past year, Stand for Campus Freedom and alumni in our network have engaged university leaders, trustees, faculty, students, and fellow alumni concerning federal and state measures that place pressure on institutions to alter academic programs, governance arrangements, hiring practices, and campus policies. This experience informs our concern about the proposed accreditation regulations.

We support strong accreditation standards, meaningful accountability for educational quality, compliance with civil rights law, and robust protections for academic freedom and open debate. We also recognize that the autonomy, individuality, and self-governance characteristic of American universities constitute a core strength, allowing varied academic and intellectual communities to flourish throughout the country. The proposed rule would insert the federal government into matters at the heart of academic governance, threatening First Amendment protections and exposing scholarly and educational institutions to inappropriate political control. We urge the Department to withdraw or substantially revise the provisions that would use accreditation to regulate academic freedom, intellectual diversity, faculty governance, and institutional policies, as well as the provision linking federal and state enforcement actions to mandatory accreditation review.

I. Accreditation should remain a safeguard of educational quality rather than an instrument of federal supervision over academic life.

The distinctive American system of higher education rests on substantial institutional independence. Accreditation developed as a nongovernmental system of peer review through which institutions and academic experts assess and establish baseline thresholds for educational quality. Federal recognition of accrediting agencies began in connection with veterans’ education benefits in the 1950s. With enactment of the Higher Education Act in 1965, Congress expanded the role of accreditation by making it a component of institutional eligibility for federal student aid. These developments were not intended to, and did not, convert accreditors into instruments for federal direction of academic life.

The proposed rule risks eroding that distinction and subjecting autonomous colleges and universities to substantially greater political control.

Proposed § 602.17(a)(2) would require accreditors, when applying faculty standards, to evaluate an extensive set of institutional practices involving faculty performance evaluations, academic freedom, First Amendment protections, civil rights, staffing practices, and intellectual diversity. Proposed § 602.17(a)(2)(viii), in particular, would require a policy designed to “support, promote, and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity” among faculty and would require measurement of faculty and student perceptions concerning the range of viewpoints and perspectives offered by the institution or program.

Congress has placed explicit limits on federal involvement in these areas. Section 496(g) of the Higher Education Act provides that the Secretary may not establish criteria for accrediting agencies or associations that are not required by Section 496 itself. Section 496(o) provides that the Secretary “shall not promulgate any regulation with respect to the standards of an accreditation agency or association” described in Section 496(a)(5), which expressly encompasses standards concerning curricula and faculty. 20 U.S.C. § 1099b(g), (o). The General Education Provisions Act similarly provides that no provision of an applicable federal education program may be construed to authorize a federal department, agency, officer, or employee to exercise “direction, supervision, or control” over an educational institution’s curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel. 20 U.S.C. § 1232a.

The Department acknowledges the restriction in Section 496(o), but characterizes the proposed requirements as governing the application of accreditor standards rather than their substantive content. That distinction is difficult to reconcile with provisions specifying what accreditors must require institutions to address in faculty evaluation, academic freedom, intellectual diversity, and staffing policies. These are manifestly substantive areas of university governance.

The Department’s own description of the proposal reinforces this concern. The NPRM states that proposed § 602.17(a)(2) would “set expectations to which accrediting agencies must adhere” in applying faculty standards and explains that several of its provisions are included to implement Executive Order 14279. 91 Fed. Reg. at 53,957. An executive order cannot confer regulatory authority that Congress withheld. Characterizing these mandates as rules governing the application of accreditor standards does not alter their substance nor remedy their impermissibility: they specify matters accreditors must examine and policies institutions must maintain as a condition of accreditation.

The NPRM also states that the Department intends “not to prescribe specific institutional policies or override institutional autonomy.” Id. at 53,958. Yet the operative provisions require institutions to maintain particular types of policies, identify objectives those policies must pursue, and mandate measurement of faculty and student perceptions concerning intellectual diversity. The proposed regulatory text extends considerably further into institutional academic policy than the Department’s stated intention suggests.

Because accreditation by a federally recognized accreditor is a prerequisite for access to Title IV federal student aid, these requirements will exert powerful influence even where the Department does not directly prescribe the result of an accreditation review. Institutions cannot treat accreditation requirements as advisory. Conditioning participation in the federal accreditation system on examination of academic policies gives federal officials substantial leverage over matters Congress has sought to leave outside federal control.

II. Federal regulation of “intellectual diversity” would endanger the academic freedom it purports to protect.

Stand for Campus Freedom strongly supports intellectual pluralism and the ability of faculty and students to express unpopular views. Universities should resist ideological conformity, combat hard and soft forms of censorship, and safeguard academic freedom against attack.

A federal accreditation mandate is an ill-suited means of accomplishing those objectives.

“Intellectual diversity” has no settled regulatory meaning. Yet the proposal would require institutions to prioritize it and measure perceptions concerning the range of viewpoints they offer. Those requirements raise unavoidable questions. What constitutes an adequate range of viewpoints? Which perspectives count toward the required diversity? How are student and faculty perceptions to be measured and interpreted? At what point would the results indicate that an institution or program has failed to “appropriately prioritize” intellectual diversity?

Answering these questions requires judgments about academic substance. Is a theory cutting-edge or fringe? Is a particular viewpoint sufficiently relevant to a discipline to warrant representation? When may an academic field conclude that a theory has been discredited or cease teaching a particular approach? At a research university, such judgments belong to faculty, departments, academic leaders, and governing boards acting within the institution’s mission and established principles of academic freedom.

The Department’s treatment of “academic freedom” raises a related concern. The Higher Education Act does not define the term. During negotiated rulemaking, the Department proposed a definition and subsequently removed it from the regulatory text after objections from negotiators. The NPRM nonetheless sets out the Department’s preferred definition and states that an institution or accreditor employing it would, in the Department’s view, satisfy the proposed requirements. 91 Fed. Reg. at 53,958.

Although formally optional, this approach has troubling coercive potential. Accreditors whose continued recognition depends on Department approval, and institutions whose access to federal aid depends on accreditation, have strong incentives to adopt a federal definition that the Department has already declared sufficient. The result could be federal influence over the meaning and application of academic freedom even though the Department elected not to place that definition in the regulation itself.

The dangers extend beyond the policies of the current administration. Once the federal government establishes authority to assess whether universities provide an adequate range of intellectual perspectives, future administrations can use the same mechanism to advance different ideological priorities. Academic freedom is more secure when government protects the legal conditions for independent inquiry while leaving intellectual judgments to institutions and scholars, recognizing that particular academic decisions and trends will sometimes draw criticism from political officials.

If the Department retains any academic-freedom provision, it should limit the requirement to determining whether institutions clearly articulate and follow their own lawful commitments concerning academic freedom and freedom of expression. The Department should neither prescribe the content of those commitments nor require accreditors to assess whether institutions have achieved a federally required degree of intellectual diversity in their faculties or academic offerings.

III. Federal and state enforcement actions should not automatically trigger accreditation scrutiny.

Proposed § 602.28(d) creates a separate and serious problem. Current regulations require an accreditor to review an institution when another recognized accrediting agency has taken an adverse action. The proposed regulation would extend that requirement when an institution or program “has been the subject of a similar action or status by a State agency or Federal agency.” The accreditor would then be required to conduct a review to determine whether it should also impose an adverse action, probation, or an equivalent status. 91 Fed. Reg. at 53,968–69.

This change would amplify the consequences of government enforcement actions before an underlying dispute necessarily has been resolved.

The proposal does not clearly define what constitutes a “similar action or status” by a government agency. Government actions take many forms and carry different legal significance. An agency may commence an investigation, issue preliminary findings, suspend funding, impose an administrative sanction, enter a settlement, or take an action that remains subject to administrative or judicial review. A rule making these actions potential triggers for mandatory accreditation scrutiny should establish clear limits on which actions qualify and when they become sufficiently final to justify collateral accreditation consequences.

Recent experience illustrates the danger. In 2025, federal agencies froze and ultimately terminated nearly $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard University while seeking major changes to university policies, hiring, academic programs, and governance. A federal district court subsequently held that the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters violated the First Amendment, that the Termination Letters violated Title VI, and that the Freeze Orders were arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The court vacated the challenged Freeze Orders and Termination Letters. President & Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Nos. 25-cv-11048-ADB & 25-cv-10910-ADB, 2025 WL 2528380 (D. Mass. Sept. 3, 2025). The government has appealed.

Whatever one’s view of the underlying controversy, the episode illustrates why executive-branch action should not prompt a second regulatory process carrying potential accreditation sanctions. Government findings can be contested, reversed, or vacated. Enforcement theories and priorities can also change between administrations.

A rule that attaches accreditation consequences to nonfinal government actions could place institutions in an untenable position. A college or university entitled to challenge an agency determination might nonetheless alter otherwise lawful policies to avoid the cost and uncertainty of a mandatory accreditation review. The resulting pressure would weaken the processes Congress has provided for administrative and judicial review.

A federal or state action should trigger accreditation review only after a final determination through applicable administrative procedures, only when that determination remains legally operative, and only if the underlying violation bears directly on a statutory accreditation criterion.

IV. The Department should preserve a clear boundary between lawful government oversight and academic self-governance.

Colleges and universities are subject to federal civil rights laws, financial-aid requirements, research rules, and numerous other legal obligations. Institutional independence does not confer immunity from those laws. Government should enforce them through lawful and established procedures.

Accreditation should not become a secondary enforcement channel through which federal officials can influence faculty hiring, academic policy, scholarly inquiry, institutional governance, or the range of viewpoints represented on campus. Those matters lie principally within university governance, subject to applicable law and constitutional requirements.

Stand for Campus Freedom therefore urges the Department to:

1. Remove the provisions of proposed § 602.17 that prescribe the substance of institutional policies concerning intellectual diversity, academic freedom, faculty evaluation, and instructional staffing. If an academic-freedom requirement is retained, it should ask whether institutions clearly state and consistently observe their own lawful policies without prescribing their content.

2. Eliminate the requirement that institutions “appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity” or measure student and faculty perceptions concerning the range of viewpoints and perspectives offered by the institution or program. Accreditors should protect conditions for free inquiry rather than evaluate whether institutions have achieved a federally prescribed degree of intellectual diversity.

3. Restore § 602.28(d) to its present focus on actions by other recognized accreditors. If government actions remain within the provision, they should trigger accreditation review only after a final determination through applicable administrative procedures, only while the action remains legally operative, and only when the finding bears directly on a statutory accreditation criterion. Stayed or vacated government actions should not provide a basis for mandatory accreditation review.

4. Add an explicit safeguard confirming that the regulations do not authorize federal direction or control over the actions of accreditors in relation to curriculum, research, faculty hiring or evaluation, academic governance, or the viewpoint composition of an institution.

American higher education is the envy of the world in significant part because universities possess room to differ from one another and from the government of the day. That independence allows scholars to pursue evidence where it leads, institutions to develop distinct missions, and students to encounter ideas that political authorities may dislike.

Accreditation should reinforce educational quality and institutional integrity. It should not give any administration a means to police the intellectual life of American colleges and universities.

For these reasons, Stand for Campus Freedom urges the Department to withdraw or substantially revise the provisions identified above.

Respectfully submitted,

Stand for Campus Freedom