A federal appeals court Monday rejected Florida’s push to throw out federal rules for accreditation agencies for public universities.
The unanimous decision of a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2024 lower court ruling that found the federal accreditation structure to be constitutional.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration brought the lawsuit in 2023, when Joe Biden, a Democrat, was President, arguing Congress had unconstitutionally delegated its power to private accreditation agencies.
“The accreditation requirement is neither a delegation of government power nor an unascertainable condition,” Judge Andrew Brasher wrote in the ruling.
Brasher, an appointee of President Donald Trump, was joined in the decision by Judge William Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, and Judge Nancy Abudu, a Joe Biden appointee.
The argument from Florida that accreditation agencies were making decisions on eligibility for federal funds through the Higher Education Act of 1965 meant they were acting as agents of the federal government didn’t persuade the court.
“To begin with, private educational accreditors preexisted the Higher Education Act,” Brasher wrote. “Their power to accredit comes not from the federal government, but from their member institutions who voluntarily submit to their authority and by-laws.”
DeSantis has pushed to get Florida’s public universities out from the accrediting eye of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, or SACS. In 2025 DeSantis announced Florida would set up a new accrediting body, in collaboration with other states, to review universities to ensure their quality.
Among his critiques of SACS was DeSantis’ allegation it insisted on incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in schools. He’s also alleged accrediting agencies aren’t accountable to the government.
“Who are these accreditors? Did you elect any of these accreditors to anything? No … these juntas kind of have developed where the Department of Education in the past has approved them to be accreditors, and so they basically don't have accountability,” DeSantis said in January 2025.
As Brasher noted in his ruling, Florida has clashed with SACS several times over the last 15 years.
In 2013, then-Gov. Rick Scott said the president of Florida A&M University should be suspended as the school went through a scandal involving a hazing incident, and SACS threatened to withhold the Tallahassee institution’s accreditation if the school acted at Scott’s direction.
And when then-Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, a former House Speaker, became a candidate for the Florida State University presidency when a vacancy occurred in 2021, SACS leaders wrote a letter noting his lack of qualifications in university administration. There were also concerns that as commissioner, Corcoran was on the State University System Board of Governors that would have to approve the FSU president pick.
Corcoran didn’t get the job but was later picked to be president of New College of Florida in Sarasota.
