The cancellation of the latest NACIQI (National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) meeting brought back bitter memories that refuse to fade.
It’s been twenty years since I traveled to Washington, DC—dressed in my best lobbying attire and carrying a meticulous roster of Department of Education staff—to visit the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) on K Street. My goal was simple, even noble: to seek answers about the opaque workings of accreditation in American higher education. What I encountered instead was a wall of silence, surveillance, and authoritarianism.
I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Department building and signed in. Under "Purpose of Visit," I wrote: Reform. I was calm, professional, and respectful. I asked to see the NACIQI Chair, Bonnie, hoping that she would be willing to speak with me about a system that, even then, was falling into disrepair. But what happened next still infuriates me.
Within seconds, two armed, uniformed guards approached me. They didn’t ask questions. They gave an ultimatum: leave or be arrested.
I eventually complied, descending into the lobby, still stunned. From there I began dialing—one by one—through the directory of names I had so carefully assembled. I called staffers, analysts, assistants, anyone who might answer. Not a single person picked up. I could feel the eyes of the guards watching me, one of them posted on the mezzanine like a sniper keeping watch over a public enemy. I was not dangerous. I was not disruptive. I was, however, unwanted.
The next day, I turned to my Congressman, Allen Boyd, whose LA generously tried to intervene. His office contacted OPE, attempting to broker a meeting on my behalf. The Department didn’t even return his call. Apparently, a sitting member of Congress—who didn’t sit on a high-ranking committee—carried no weight at the fortress of federal education oversight.
This most recent overstepping by US ED—unilaterally postponing NACIQI’s Summer 2025 meeting—reminds observers of how limited the oversight provided by NACIQI really is. It is, apparently, nothing more than a performative shell that fulfills ceremonial functions, and not much more.
I would argue that this latest episode reveals that NACIQI is less an independent watchdog and more a ceremonial body with limited real power, and so my view differs somewhat from David Halperin, because he sees more substantive activity than I do.
The history of ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) and SACS (Southern Association of Colleges) appearing before NACIQI illustrates how regulatory capture can manifest not only through industry influence, but also through bureaucratic design and process control. The OPE’s central role, combined with NACIQI’s limited enforcement power, has allowed failing accreditors to retain recognition for years, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of noncompliance and harm to students.
The illusion of accountability has long been a feature of the accreditation system, not a flaw. NACIQI meetings, when they occur, are tightly scripted, with carefully managed testimony and limited public engagement. The real decisions are made elsewhere, behind closed doors, often under the influence of powerful lobbying groups and entrenched bureaucracies that resist transparency and reform at every turn.
Despite the increasing scrutiny on higher education and growing public awareness of student debt, poor educational outcomes, and sham institutions, the federal recognition of accreditors remains an elite-controlled process. It is a closed loop. Institutions, accreditors, and government officials all play their roles in a carefully choreographed performance that rarely leads to systemic change. The result is a system that protects institutions at the expense of students, particularly the most vulnerable—low-income, first-generation, and minority students who are often targeted by predatory schools hiding behind federal accreditation.
This is the reality of the U.S. Department of Education’s accreditation apparatus: inaccessible, unaccountable, and increasingly symbolic. NACIQI, far from being an independent advisory body, has always functioned as a ceremonial front for political appointees and entrenched interests. It is, as I see it, just another arm of Vishnu—multiplicitous, all-seeing, but ultimately indifferent to critique or reform. Whether it’s chaired by a bureaucrat or a former wrestling executive like Linda McMahon, the outcome is the same: the process is rigged to exclude dissent and suppress scrutiny.
And yet, pundits today still fail to grasp the implications. They speak of accreditation as if it were a technocratic process guided by evidence and integrity. They act as if NACIQI were a neutral arbiter. But I know otherwise, because I was there—thrown out, silenced, and treated like a trespasser in the very institution that claims to protect educational quality and student interest.
This is more than personal bitterness. It’s about structural rot. When critics are expelled, when staff are muzzled, and when public servants ignore elected representatives, we are not dealing with oversight—we are witnessing capture. Accreditation in this country serves the accreditors and the institutions, not students, not taxpayers, and certainly not reformers.
Two decades later, the anger remains. So does the silence.
Sources:
Department of Education building directory and procedures (2005)
Congressional Office of Rep. Allen Boyd (archival record, 2005)
Public notices regarding NACIQI meeting cancellations (2024–2025)
David Halperin, Republic Report
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