April 23 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that targets the college accreditation process, including encouraging competition in the process.
The accreditation process is linked to colleges and universities accessing federal money for student loans and Pell grants. The schools depend on grants besides tuition and for public schools' state funding.
"University accreditation is currently a process controlled by a number of third-party organizations that's by statute, by law, many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities, instead of accrediting based on merit and performance," Will Scharf, White House staff secretary, said.
In the order, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was directed to "hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law, including by requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of 'diversity, equity and inclusion' initiatives."
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Also, McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi were ordered to investigate and terminate unlawful discrimination by American higher education institutions, including law schools and medical schools.
The education secretary, whose agency Trump wants to dismantle, was present in the Oval Office for signings. He also signed an executive order to ensure the training of artificial intelligence in schools for the future workforce in the United States.
"There's somebody today, very smart person, said that AI is the way to the future," Trump said. "I don't know if that's right or not, but certainly, very smart people are investing in it."
Another order would "end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions, protect the marketplace of ideas from propaganda sponsored by foreign governments and safeguard America's students and research from foreign exploitation." Schools must make certain disclosures.
On hand at the ceremony were wounded veterans who were given challenge coins.
The accreditation order will allow colleges to switch accreditors easily and encourage more competition instead of the current lengthy process.
In 2019, Trump in his first term removed geographic restrictions on which accrediting schools could be used.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, sued the Biden administration over the college accreditation system in 2023. One year later, Judge Jacqueline Becerra, a Biden appointee, dismissed the suit.
"The State's objection to the requirement that they comply with standards set by private agencies to receive federal dollars from its students simply fails to state a claim," Becerra wrote.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges was Florida's accreditor.
On Monday, Harvard sued the Trump administration after cutting off $2 billion in grants and contracts for refusing to agree to overnight and scrapping diversity, equity and inclusion.
