Who Gets to Gatekeep the Gatekeepers? Trump’s Higher-Education Fight Is Really About Who Shapes the Next Generation

By Peter Boykin
GoRightNews.com

America is having another fight over higher education, but underneath the bureaucratic language about accreditation is a much bigger question:

Who gets to decide what institutions are allowed to teach, how they teach it, and which ideas future generations are encouraged to challenge?

The Trump administration is pushing to reshape the accreditation system that determines which colleges and universities meet federally recognized standards. The Department of Education says its proposed overhaul would make it easier for new accreditors to compete, reduce what it considers excessive influence from private trade associations, strengthen academic freedom and intellectual diversity, and place greater emphasis on student outcomes. The Department also notes that federally recognized accreditors act as gatekeepers to more than $100 billion in federal student aid each year. (U.S. Department of Education)

That makes accreditation far more than an obscure administrative process. It can influence which institutions survive, which programs students can attend with federal aid, and ultimately which educational models get room to compete.

The ABA Is Now Part of the Fight

The administration has also moved toward revoking the American Bar Association’s status as the federally recognized accreditor of American law schools, a role the organization has held since 1952. Reuters reports that the Education Department raised concerns about whether the ABA’s accrediting council is sufficiently independent and about its handling of diversity-related accreditation standards. The matter is still going through the federal review process, so no final revocation has yet occurred. (Reuters)

Critics will understandably ask whether political administrations should have greater influence over accreditation.

That concern deserves an answer.

But so does the opposite question:

Should a small number of entrenched private organizations be allowed to exercise enormous influence over education indefinitely simply because they have always done so?

Competition, transparency and accountability should apply to gatekeepers too.

Education Should Create Thinkers, Not Followers

This is where the fight becomes bigger than Trump, the ABA or any particular university.

A free republic cannot survive if education becomes an assembly line for approved opinions.

Students should learn American history, including its achievements and failures. They should understand the Constitution, separation of powers, civil liberties, federalism, free markets and the arguments that have shaped this country.

They should also encounter people who disagree with them.

A conservative student should be capable of defending his beliefs against a progressive professor.

A progressive student should be capable of challenging a conservative argument.

Neither should need an ideological safe room.

The goal should not be producing graduates who know what they are supposed to think.

It should be producing citizens who know how to think.

The Greatest Curriculum Is Intellectual Freedom

The Go Right with Peter Boykin Perspective

I support challenging entrenched gatekeepers in higher education.

No private association, accreditation monopoly, university bureaucracy, or federal agency should be treated as infallible simply because it has accumulated influence over decades.

But reform should create more intellectual competition, not simply replace one ideological gatekeeper with another.

That is where constitutional principles matter.

Give institutions room to compete.

Demand measurable educational quality.

Protect students against actual discrimination.

Protect academic freedom.

Let professors teach controversial ideas.

Let students challenge them.

And then let the best arguments survive.

America does not need another generation trained to repeat whichever political orthodoxy happens to dominate the institution issuing the diploma.

We need citizens capable of looking authority in the eye and asking:

Why?

That is why this debate inspired my song “The Freedom We Pass On.”

Freedom is not inherited automatically.

Every generation receives it temporarily and decides whether the next generation will receive more of it or less.

Teach them history.

Teach them the Constitution.

Give them competing ideas.

Give them the courage to disagree with their professors, politicians, parents and even with us.

Then trust them enough to think for themselves.

Because liberty survives when we pass it on.

Sources

U.S. Department of Education: Proposed Accreditation Overhaul

Reuters: Administration Moves to End ABA Law-School Oversight

THE FREEDOM WE PASS ON – Go Right Music

The Freedom We Pass On – Go Right Music

🇺🇸🎵 “THE FREEDOM WE PASS ON” — Peter Boykin

Who should control what the next generation is allowed to learn?

The latest fight over colleges, accreditation, and the American Bar Association got me thinking about something much bigger:

Education should teach young Americans HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Give them history, including the victories and the failures.

Give them the Constitution.

Give them books that challenge them.

Give them competing arguments.

Let them question their professors.

Let them question politicians.

Hell, let them question us.

Because a free Republic doesn’t need another generation trained to repeat the approved answer.

It needs citizens capable of thinking for themselves.

🎵 That’s the message behind my song:

THE FREEDOM WE PASS ON

We inherited liberty from people who argued, sacrificed, fought and refused to surrender it.

Now it’s our turn.

🇺🇸 PASS IT ON.

🎧 Turn it up. Share it with a parent, teacher, student, veteran or anyone who believes the next generation deserves an education worthy of a free Republic.

#TheFreedomWePassOn, #PeterBoykin, #GoRight, #GoRightNews, #ConstitutionalistForLiberty, #EducationFreedom, #AcademicFreedom, #FreeSpeech, #SchoolChoice, #IntellectualDiversity, #Constitution, #WeThePeople, #LimitedGovernment, #EqualOpportunity, #AmericaFirst, #Liberty, #USA

Who Gets to Gatekeep the Gatekeepers? Trump’s Higher-Education Fight Is Really About Who Shapes the Next Generation

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