\n<\/p>\n
The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity has one fewer member after the Department of Education removed Joshua Figueira mere months into the role.<\/p>\n
While ED did not explain why Figueira wasn\u2019t at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, one member accused the department of ousting him for breaking ranks in a leadership vote. Figueira\u2019s absence was the first sign that partisan politics would seep into the meeting of what is meant to be a politically independent committee. Later in the discussion, members delved into an accreditor\u2019s DEI standards and squabbled over who gets to set the meeting\u2019s agenda. <\/p>\n
Figueira was appointed to NACIQI by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in November. His removal from the board came to light at the onset of the meeting when Democratic appointee Bob Shireman accused the department of removing Figueira for voting against the election of current chair Jay Greene, also a McMahon appointee, at December\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just so happens that the person who is not here is the one who did not vote for you for chair at the last meeting,\u201d Shireman said to Greene at the start of Tuesday\u2019s proceedings. \u201cThe Federal Advisory Committee Act says that advisory committee members are supposed to act with independent judgment and not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
ED did not offer a public explanation for Figueira\u2019s removal, nor did it deny the accusation that he had been removed for political reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [education] secretary has broad discretion that is consistent with statute and long-standing practice across many federal agencies to ensure that NACIQI is positioned to effectively carry out its advisory responsibilities and support the department\u2019s priorities,\u201d David Barker, assistant secretary for postsecondary education, said in response to Shireman\u2019s concerns. \u201cThe secretary is committed to assembling a body of members aligned with the urgent need to reform higher education, a system that is too often failing students and taxpayers.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shireman then pressed Barker to \u201cassure the Department of Education appointees that they\u2019re not going to be removed because they don\u2019t vote in the way that you or the department want them to.\u201d But Barker demurred and referred Shireman to the statement he had just made.<\/p>\n
Department of Education officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed<\/em> about why or when Figueira was removed. Based on documents available in the Federal Register<\/em>, Figueira appears to have been removed from NACIQI sometime between the end of the year and early March.<\/p>\n Figueira, general counsel for Brigham Young University\u2013Idaho, was set to serve through 2031. Contacted by email, Figueira declined to comment.<\/p>\n Later in the meeting, members turned their attention to a compliance report submitted by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. The report was initially on the consent agenda, meaning it would have been approved with little to no discussion. Instead, members spent more than 90 minutes on NWCCU, mostly around concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion, which the accreditor does not have as part of its standards.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been noted, I think correctly, that DEI, by itself, is not necessarily legal or illegal, lawful or unlawful\u2014the devil is in the details,\u201d said Adam Kissel, a Republican appointee who questioned whether a reference to closing racial gaps in completion rates ran afoul of civil rights law.<\/p>\n Kissel pointed to concerns about a requirement in NWCCU\u2019s standards for member institutions to collect student outcomes data \u201cdisaggregated by race, ethnicity, age, gender, socioeconomic status, first generation college student, and any other institutionally meaningful categories that may help promote student achievement and close barriers to academic excellence and success (equity gaps).\u201d<\/p>\n He flagged another standard that calls on members to \u201cfocus on equity and closure of equity gaps in achievement.\u201d Such standards, he argued, may violate civil rights law by directing where institutions must steer their resources.<\/p>\n Kissel also read a statement from the accreditor about NWCCU\u2019s commitment \u201cto promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and social justice\u201d within the organization and at its member institutions.<\/p>\n But NWCCU president Selena Grace pushed back. She said all \u201creferences to equity gaps are within each institution\u2019s unique institutional mission and context\u201d and members have \u201cflexibility to determine how to disaggregate their data based on their institutional mission and context.\u201d She also noted that the statement on social justice that Kissel referred to was never formal policy and was removed from NWCCU\u2019s website in 2023.<\/p>\n As the conversation stretched on, frustrations became palpable. <\/p>\n Though a noticeably partisan shadow hung over the board meeting, Republican appointee Jennifer Blum raised concerns about the lengthy discussion on NWCCU\u2019s compliance report. Blum noted that the committee had spent more than an hour and a half on a compliance report that ED staff had not raised concerns about and would have otherwise been quickly approved.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not you that gets to decide a new issue,\u201d Blum said to her fellow committee member Kissel. \u201cIt\u2019s the [senior department official] who brings the matter to the staff\u2014the department staff\u2014and the staff refers it to us. Adam, you don\u2019t get to raise a new issue in this meeting\u2014you could raise it with the department ahead of time.\u201d <\/p>\n In response to Blum\u2019s criticism, Kissel accused her of trying to stifle discussion. Pressed by Blum to provide a specific example of noncompliance, Kissel said, \u201cI think we\u2019re talking about systemic issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the lengthy discussion, NACIQI members approved NWCCU\u2019s compliance report. NACIQI also accepted a compliance report for three programmatic accreditors and approved renewals of recognition for the American Board of Funeral Service Education, the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education and the Association of Institutions of Jewish Studies. <\/p>\n NACIQI meets again today for a policy discussion and to vote on additional renewals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity has one fewer member after the Department of Education removed Joshua Figueira mere months into the role. While ED did not explain why Figueira wasn\u2019t at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, one member accused the department of ousting him for breaking ranks in a leadership vote. Figueira\u2019s absence was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2431,2855,16699,3096,4462],"class_list":{"0":"post-47433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-chair","9":"tag-member","10":"tag-naciqi","11":"tag-removes","12":"tag-voted"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}DEI Examination<\/h2>\n