Georgia joins conservative-led effort to reshape college accreditation

Georgia has joined five other states in forming the Commission for Public Higher Education, an aspiring accreditation agency that serves as a conservative alternative to the so-called “woke” legacy agencies.

Two Georgia universities, Georgia Southern and Columbus State, have volunteered to go through the new accreditation process, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Accreditation serves as a gatekeeper to federal funds. 

These moves come at a time when the Trump administration is considering changing the accreditation handbook to reform the system “through reduction of unduly burdensome and bureaucratic requirements and increasing transparency and efficiency,” according to a news release.

T. Jameson Brewer, associate professor of social foundations and leadership education at the University of North Georgia, spoke on The Ron Show following an opinion piece published in the AJC.

The show host, Ron Roberts, brought up the history of the Daughters of the Confederacy influencing education in the U.S. 

“I think the problem is that we have a long history of political persuasion, attempting to place their thumb on the scale to shape what curriculum looks like a little bit. In the case of this new accrediting body, it gives the appearance that there’s an overt effort to not just shape specific textbooks per se, but to go for the broader umbrella of the accrediting body to try to place the thumb on the scale using very thinly-veiled language,” Brewer said. 

“It gives the impression that this is a political effort to try to shape or reshape not just textbooks and conversations that are had at the university level, but really the purposes of the university itself.” 

Brewer rejected the idea that students should be treated as customers, referring to University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue comments that the university system is a “customer service business.”

Brewer said students need to be challenged in the classroom, and if they are treated as customers, it will create an environment in which professors cannot correct them.

“That is the point of education. We are supposed to have these very difficult conversations. Any good teacher worth their salt, any good professor worth their salt, is having multiple viewpoints being shared,” he said.