in effect
This is an executive order (EO 14279, signed April 23, 2025) directing the Department of Education to reform how accreditation agencies are overseen. It instructs federal officials to penalize accreditors that require colleges to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards as a condition of accreditation, and to refocus accreditation on measurable student outcomes.
The Secretary of Education is directed to deny, suspend, or terminate federal recognition of any accreditor that requires institutions to engage in what the order characterizes as unlawful discrimination under DEI-based standards. The Attorney General and Secretary of Education must specifically investigate the American Bar Association’s law school accreditor and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (MD programs) for their diversity-related accreditation requirements, with authority to revoke their federally recognized status. The Department must resume approving new accreditors to increase competition, require accreditors to use program-level student outcome data (without reference to race, ethnicity, or sex), and make it easier for institutions to switch accreditors. It also calls for an experimental “flexible pathways” site under existing Higher Education Act authority and directs updates to the Accreditation Handbook to make the recognition process more transparent.
Accrediting bodies — particularly the ABA’s legal education council, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education — face potential loss of their federally recognized status if they do not remove DEI-related accreditation standards. Colleges and universities that currently rely on accreditation to access federal student aid (over $100 billion annually in loans and Pell Grants) could face disruption if their accreditor loses recognition. Students at those institutions would lose access to federal financial aid if their school’s accreditor is decertified and no replacement accreditor is obtained.