Department of Education secretary Betsy DeVos earlier this year reinstated the for-profit college accreditor Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools even though the organization did not meet federal education standards.
The Education Department March 2018 report, released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, revealed that department analysts had concerns with restoring ACICS and expressed those concerns to DeVos, Politico reported.
The report concluded that the Trump administration should not reinstate ACICS, however, a month after the report was released, DeVos moved forward and restored the federal powers of the organization.
Former President Barack Obama terminated the organization in 2016 after the administration found it had not been following 21 federal standards.
DeVos was able to reinstate ACICS after a federal judge ruled the Obama administration unlawfully ignored relevant evidence in making the 2016 decision.
However, department spokeswoman Liz Hill suggested to Politico in an email that DeVos had no say in the decision for ACICS to be reinstated, but it was instead the judge’s ruling that forced the decision.
“The Secretary did not make the determination to reinstate ACICS,” Hill said. “A judge ruled that the previous administration failed to consider 36,000 pages of relevant evidence before making its decision to withdraw ACICS’s recognition as an accreditor and remanded the case back to the Secretary.”
DeVos is working on a more long-term decision regarding the status of ACICS.
