BY KATIE RAINWATER

This post follows up on, and covers new developments related to, the author’s June 15 Academe Blog post.

In June, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC)—the traditional accreditor for the Southeastern United States, now also called the Commission on Colleges and Universities (CCU)* —released a first draft of new standards intended to replace standards updated in 2023 and published in 2024.

Produced by a committee cochaired by DeSantis ally Florida Polytechnic University President Devin Stephenson, the new standards appeared devised to position SACSCOC to remain competitive with the Commission for Public Higher Education, a new state-run accrediting body created by DeSantis. The AAUP criticized the new standards for completely omitting provisions on academic freedom and shared governance. I argued here that the new standards ceded ground to critics of independent accreditation and faculty governance like the Heritage Foundation.

In late September, CCU released a second draft of its new standards. Below, I describe what is better, newly bad, and still bad. (TL;DR: The revised standards are a gift to antidemocratic forces that aim to transform higher education institutions into workforce academies and partisan disinformation generators).

Better (with Caveats)
Academic Freedom. The June draft standards eschewed academic freedom and instead required institutions to develop policies on “the principles of free inquiry and intellectual autonomy.” The September draft restores a standard on academic freedom. This is important because—as the AAUP elaborated—unlike the other concepts, “academic freedom has a long history of reflection, practice, and precedent.”

While cheering the restoration of the academic freedom standard, we should recall that CCU president Stephen Pruitt has declared the accreditor’s work will be premised on acknowledgment of “states’ rights.” Given that the gravest threat to academic freedom in red states is the state, standards will preserve academic freedom in name but not in practice if state authority is recognized as supreme.

Shared Governance. The June draft included no mention of shared governance. The September draft restores a shared governance provision from the 2024 standards. It also modifies a provision on “Academic Program Content,” which previously omitted a role for faculty to specify that content should be “designed and revised with faculty input.”

Language on “faculty input” understates the authority traditionally granted to faculty. The 2024 principles are much clearer on this point: “The faculty has responsibility for directing the learning enterprise.” With red-state politicians prescribing college curricula, standards must encode the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities principle that faculty have “primary responsibility” for “those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process.” Language on faculty input should be amended to recognize that faculty have primary responsibility for the development and revision of academic content. 

Newly Bad
In July, new federal rules went into effect that allow Pell Grants to support short-term workforce training. In August, the Department of Education published proposed rules that include radically new prescriptions for accreditors’ assessment of institutions. New provisions introduced in CCU’s September draft appear designed to bring the accreditor in line with the Trump administration’s aspirations for higher education.

Workforce Alignment. The June draft included a standard requiring institutions to review “educational programs and career competencies to support their alignment with industry standards and workforce needs.” The September draft adds language specifying that this evaluation should be used “to inform the curriculum.”

Preparing students for future employment is an important goal of higher education. However, the workforce alignment standard risks crowding out other aims of education, stifling innovation, and compromising the public purpose of higher education to serve the interests of powerful industry groups.

“Intellectual Pluralism.” The September draft introduces a new standard requiring that an institution “publishes policies designed to support, promote, and prioritize intellectual diversity and affirm the respectful, civil exchange of ideas and viewpoints and (b) periodically measures student and faculty perceptions on the range of viewpoints offered by the institution or program.”

CCU may have introduced this standard in anticipation of the implementation of the proposed federal rules that contain an intellectual diversity provision. Mandating viewpoint diversity can undermine the pursuit of truth and has been used to justify ideological centers created by state legislatures and using public funding to engage in partisan advocacy.

The federal rules are not yet policy. Other accreditors have joined faculty in urging the Department of Education to discard the proposed rule on intellectual diversity. The Northwest Commission writes, “Our own academic freedom and freedom of expression standards already create the conditions for dynamic campus environments, and we do not believe new measures on viewpoint diversity . . . are necessary or appropriate.”

Still Bad
General Education. The June draft omitted a provision from the 2024 standards restricting general education courses from focusing on content specific to a particular occupation or profession. The September draft maintains this omission and includes language that general education courses should support “preparation for future employment and career adaptability.” Like the June standards, the September draft omits a distributive requirement that general education courses be drawn from three broad subject areas. These changes open the door for degree requirements more focused on workforce readiness.

Expedited Degree Programs. Like the June draft, the September draft removes prescriptions on minimum credit hours for degree programs. This provision appears poised to accelerate a trend to shrink student learning already well underway in pushes for ninety-credit-hour degrees.

Contingent Faculty. The June draft removed language in the 2024 standards requiring the institution to retain “a sufficient number of full-time faculty members” and replaced it with a standard requiring only “sufficient faculty.” The September draft maintains this revision.

CCU invites interested parties to complete a feedback survey on the September standards by October 12. Thwarting the multipronged attack on independent accreditation will require large numbers of faculty members and administrators to go public with their concerns. Faculty senates and AAUP chapters should consider organizing statements and asking their administrations to voice how the September standards are a threat to institutional quality. 

*SACSCOC recently renamed itself “The Commission on Colleges and University” (CCU). However, it continues to accredit institutions under the name SACSCOC, recognized by the Department of Education.

Katie Rainwater teaches sociology at Florida International University. She is a 2026–28 fellow of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom.