'How Authoritarians Reshape Society': Critics Denounce Trump Order Targeting College Accreditation

Critics and education voices were quick to criticize several executive orders signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday which target college accreditation, endeavor to foster artificial intelligence "competency" in K-12 schools, and more—the latest move in the president's quest to reshape American education.

With his order focused on the accreditation procedure, Trump is aiming to shake up the process that determines whether colleges and universities provide a quality education. For higher education institutions to access federal grants, loans, and other federal funds, they must be accredited, and for students to access federal loans and grants, they must attend an accredited school.

Accreditors "have remained improperly focused on compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology," according to the executive order. Per an accompanying White House fact sheet, the order directs Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to suspend or terminate an accreditor's federal recognition in order to hold it accountable if it violates federal civil rights law.

The order itself states that "requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' initiatives" would constitute a violation of federal civil rights law.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a nonprofit membership association, said Wednesday that the order focused on accreditation is yet "another attempt to dictate what is taught, learned, said, and done by college students and instructors."

"Threats to remove accreditors from their roles are transparent attempts to consolidate more power in the hands of the Trump administration in order to stifle teaching and research. These attacks are aimed at removing educational decision-making from educators and reshaping higher education to fit an authoritarian political agenda," AAUP continued.

Max Flugrath, the communications director for the free and fair elections group Fair Fight Action, echoed this sentiment on Wednesday, writing on X: "This is how authoritarians reshape society: control what we're allowed to learn."

In the past, Trump has called reshaping college accreditation his "secret weapon."

"Revoking accreditation is an existential threat for these universities," Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, toldThe Wall Street Journal, evoking how changes to the accreditation process could be broadly felt. "If you lose Pell grants and lose student loans, for most colleges that means you're done."

Prior to Wednesday's actions, higher education was already a key focus for the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has announced investigations into several colleges over their handling of alleged anti-semitism, detained multiple noncitizens who have participated in the pro-Palestine student movement, and targeted funding at multiple universities.

President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, highlighted that Trump's executive orders focused on K-12 run counter to its own professed goal of ceding federal control over education. David Axelrod, who was once a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, made this same point.

"The Trump administration really does want to be in the business of education after all. It just wants to pick and choose who it helps and who it hurts, rather than build on six decades of bipartisan efforts to improve public education," Weingarten said.

One order is aimed at bringing AI technology into schools to prepare students to be "responsible participants in the workforce of the future" and rolls back guidance issued under Obama and former President Joe Biden that compelled schools to take racial equity into account when disciplining students.

On the discipline order, "we need a commonsense approach and to give teachers authority, but this fails to create a safe and welcoming environment," said Weingarten. "It simply ignores a history where Black and brown students were disproportionately suspended or expelled from school rather than provided the opportunity to thrive."

On the artificial intelligence order, Wingarten said that it's "a transparent attempt to open up schools to unaccountable tech companies, with wholly inadequate safeguards to protect our kids."

Among the other executive actions issued on Wednesday, Trump signed an order to enhance the capacity of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to deliver "high-quality education," and an order aimed at modernizing workforce programs to prepare workers for desirable trade jobs, like through bolstering apprenticeship programs.