Accreditation order is really about controlling what's taught

President Donald Trump promised a "secret weapon" in his new executive order on university accreditation. Sure enough, it's there, hiding in plain sight. The order includes an as-yet-unnoticed directive to the Department of Education to pressure the accreditors to push universities "to prioritise intellectual diversity amongst faculty." In Trump-speak, that means hiring professors who teach what he and his followers believe to be true, regardless of what actual scholars might have demonstrated. It's a clear violation of the First Amendment for the government to tell universities who must be hired to teach based on their substantive views. The administration is presently trying to do that to Harvard University, my employer, cutting federal grants unless the university agrees to an external auditor who would review all departments and programs for "viewpoint diversity."

- Noah Feldman

Harvard has appropriately made this outrageous violation of free speech a cornerstone of its lawsuit against the Trump administration.

The president is trying to achieve the same unconstitutional objective with his accreditation executive order.

Here's how the system works: The accreditors are private companies, not part of the government. And in principle, any institution can teach students and award degrees and call itself a university — even if it's not accredited. But the only way students can access Pell grants, subsidized loans and other forms of federal tuition support is if the college or university is accredited by a company that's "recognised" as legitimate by the Department of Education.