Art Deco style letters spell out “chemistry” on the front of a two-story brick building, Montgomery Hall, that houses the chemistry department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Montgomery Hall, the chemistry department building, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, pictured, on May 15, 2025. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator) Louisiana will join six other university systems in the South to form a new alternative accrediting body, spurning longestablished standards of higher education, Gov. Jeff Landry announced with an executive order Tuesday.
In June, state university systems in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas launched the Commission for Public Higher Education. It is seeking expedited approval from the U.S. Department of Education to act as an accreditor, which is tasked with maintaining quality standards for colleges and universities.
The move comes as conservatives have sparred with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which evaluates colleges and universities in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Conservative politicians have taken issue with traditional accreditors at times because of their standards related to diversity, equity and inclusion and because accreditors require safeguards that are intended to limit the influence of external forces, including politicians, in public higher education.
Landry’s executive order creates a new Task Force on Public Higher Education Reform, which will make recommendations for how to move forward with the new commission. Among the group’s tasks will be creating a plan to pilot dual accreditation, with both the new commission and the Southern Association authorizing Louisiana schools.
“This task force will ensure Louisiana’s public universities move away from DEI-driven mandates and toward a system rooted in meritbased achievement,” Landry said in a news release.
“[The Commission for Public Higher Education] will upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels, and it will provide institutions with an alternative that focuses on student achievement, rather than the ideological fads that have so permeated those accrediting bodies over the years,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an announcement of the new accreditor in June.
Approval from the U.S. Department of Education is required before any school the new commission approves can receive federal financial aid.
Every member of Louisiana’s new task force has been directly appointed to their job by Landry or his conservative allies in the legislature except one: Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed.
Besides Reed, the other members are Board of Regents Chairwoman Misti Cordell, University of Louisiana System Board Chairman Mark Romero, LSU System Board Chairman Scott Ballard, Southern University System Board Chairman Tony Clayton, Louisiana Community and Technical College Systems Chairman Tim Hardy, Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Central, and House Education Committee Chairwoman Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie.
Landry has also appointed his executive counsel, Angelique Freel, or her designee, and Commissioner of Administration Taylor Barras or his designee. The governor will also choose three other members of the task force.
Landry supported law changes last year that gave him the power to directly appoint the chairs of the state’s five higher education boards, which were previously elected from the boards’ memberships. An earlier version of the law would have allowed Landry to directly hire university system presidents, but the provision was cut amid concerns it could jeopardize accreditation.
The group must hold its first meeting no later than Aug. 31 and must meet at least once every two months, submitting its recommendations by Jan. 30, 2026.
