Refuse recognition to accreditors that abuse their power

Research notes

• Checked for an actual refusal: the Department’s accreditation termination page (page last reviewed 2026-06-08) still documents only the 2016 ACICS derecognition, and its “accrediting agencies under review” page was last reviewed 2025-01-31 and lists no adverse action. The Federal Register’s ED accreditation notices in the window (2025-04-04, 2025-09-29, 2025-11-21, 2026-03-24, 2026-05-12, 2026-06-15) are all calls for third-party comment ahead of NACIQI meetings; the only mid-recognition review opened is of the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (inquiry letter 2025-03-19, FR 2025-18865).
• Related: the Department notified Columbia’s and Harvard’s accreditors of their Title VI violations, which implements EO 14279 §3(b)(iii) (findings passed to accreditors) rather than §2(a) (action against accreditors).
• The antitrust half of the accreditation cluster is #917; new-accreditor entry is #894.

Checked 2026-09-06. The Status did not change; no recognition action against the ABA council exists on any source we accept. The open question was whether EO 14279 §2(b)‘s assessment of “whether to suspend or terminate the Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law” — the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar — has produced an outcome. Four checks, all re-run that day:

• The Department’s two NACIQI-facing pages are still stale, and now measurably so. Both were opened and read in full. The “accrediting agencies under review” page lists agencies by NACIQI meeting date and stops at 1 August 2023; no meeting later than that appears, and the American Bar Association appears nowhere on it. The termination page still narrates only the ACICS matter, ending with Deputy Secretary Marten’s decision of 19 August 2022. Neither page has been updated to reflect anything in the evidence window.
• The Department’s full-text site search finds nothing either. (Its other search box returns identical text for a real query and a nonsense one.) “Council of the Section of Legal Education” and “American Bar Association accreditation” return only the standing accreditation overview pages and the ACICS termination page.
• The Federal Register carries no adverse action. Every ED accreditation document published on or after 2026-01-01 was listed: two are the accreditation rulemakings already cited here (2026-17001, the recognition-criteria NPRM of 2026-08-20, and 2026-03953, Regulatory Guidance Relating to the Criteria and Process for Initial Recognition of an Accrediting Agency, 2026-02-27), one is the national/regional terminology proposal (2026-03074), and the rest concern grants, student aid and Title VI. None denies, suspends or terminates any agency’s recognition.
• The attempted reading holds. A rewrite of the recognition criteria is the machinery for refusing recognition; a refusal is a decision about a named agency, and none has been made.