Columbia University Could Lose Accreditation

What would that mean for Columbia?

First, they wouldn’t have to close down. No private college in the U.S. can be forced to be closed down by the government, at least not over political speech, even antisemitism. Graduates can still be hired based on the reputation of a Columbia degree. If anything, Ivy League schools could easily forgo accreditation with no hits to their reputations.

Accreditation is more valuable for mid-tier schools. For example, the University of Michigan, “The Harvard of the Midwest,” wouldn’t really need it, but Michigan State might not survive without it. Both are public schools, but if the state of Michigan didn’t require them to get accreditation, they wouldn’t have to.

Bob Jones University, a private school, was not accredited until 2006. Before that, in 1983, they lost their federal tax-exempt status, which meant that donors could not deduct their contributions from their taxes. Bob Jones University sued, and the case made it to the Supreme Court. They lost. The university was possibly taxed by the federal government as well. The reason they lost their tax-exempt status was their admissions policies based on race, which were very specific. Basically, they would not admit blacks until 1971, and even then, they had to be married “within their race.” Over time, the restriction was relaxed so that single blacks could be admitted, but interracial dating was banned. It wasn’t until 2000 that Bob Jones University completely ended all racial restrictions.

As recently as nineteen years ago, Bob Jones did not have accreditation, yet they still admitted students, and their graduates were getting jobs. Despite all the hostility of the federal government, they were never in danger of being forcibly closed down. All the pressure was financial.

Most conservatives are aware of Hillsdale College’s refusal to accept federal funding so they aren’t subject to federal monitoring on race which most colleges are subject to. To my knowledge, there has been no credible accusation that Hillsdale discriminates based on race. On the other hand, they don’t have to hire extra staff to administer the reporting requirements the feds demand for Title IX compliance. Nor did Hillsdale change its disciplinary procedures to comply with Obama’s Department of Education requirements that essentially set up kangaroo courts when a male student was accused of loosely defined sexual intimidation or assault.

For a while, the Obama Administration toyed with the idea of taking away Hillsdale’s accreditation. I don’t know the details, but the idea was dropped in the end. Probably it was because the federal government couldn’t prove racial discrimination, which is a higher bar than it is for a college that accepts federal funding. Those federally funded colleges end up having to prove their innocence, whereas with Hillsdale and other colleges that refuse federal funding, the burden of proof is on the government. They have to be proven guilty.

It would probably be useful to look at the history of college accreditation in the U.S. Accreditation associations actually started in the late 19^th century as peer-review-based organizations. And it wasn’t really until the 1950s that the federal government got involved. At that point, the federal government had been putting a lot of money into the G.I. Bill as World War II veterans returned to civilian life and struggled to find jobs. To be fair, a lot of veterans were getting cheated by diploma mills, and the feds wanted to stop that.

So what started as a way for colleges to police each other for academic integrity has slippery-sloped its way to the federal government having the power to infringe on a college’s freedom to admit whomever they want.

In the recent past, progressive academics figured they could influence the federal government to use its funding mechanism to discriminate against conservatives and their values. And even when Republican administrations were elected, presidents like George H.W. Bush and his son wouldn’t turn around and use that power against them. They figured that Republicans would continue to govern this way so as not to retaliate against them.

And it’s not that what Trump is doing against colleges is unpopular. He’s unleashed a lot of pent-up resentment against them. Perhaps a silver lining in all this is that the universities in the U.S. could end their dependence on the federal government.

But probably not, and that would be a shame.