LSU’s Memorial Tower displays the time on Monday, March 20, 2023, on Tower Drive in Baton Rouge, La.
The Louisiana House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that would allow the governor to directly select the chair of hundreds of boards and commissions, but critics worry it could damage the ability of state universities to receive essential federal funding.
Senate Bill 462 by Sen. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, passed the House on a 62-20 vote. Because it was amended in the House to restore some of the gubernatorial power the Senate stripped out, it has to return to the Senate for another vote. Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, has said he expects senators will reject the amendments, sending it to a conference committee in which three legislators from each chamber meet behind closed doors to work out a compromise bill.
Critics have raised concerns that giving the governor additional authority over higher education governing boards could put the accreditation of state colleges and universities in jeopardy. Accreditation is a fundamental need for the operation of a university. Universities must be accredited to receive federal funding.
In its current state, the governor would have the power to select the chair for most state boards and commissions, including the five higher education oversight boards and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The bill would not apply to any board or commission that a statewide elected official chairs, such as the State Bond Commission.
Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who supports the bill, has said it is about higher education.
“This fight is all about universities,” Landry said in an April interview with WAFB-TV. “The people of this state are ready for these universities to start taking some responsibility for putting out students that are graduating with degrees that they can’t even get a job for.”
Hodges argued her bill does not give the governor any additional power but rather moves up the timeline for the governor’s control of a board. Presently, most boards have staggered terms for their members. This design means a governor has to wait sometimes years before he or she has appointed every member of a particular board, which acts as a check on their power.
Governors already appoint members of the four university and college system boards of supervisors. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), the accrediting body for Louisiana universities, requires that governing boards for its accredited schools remain free from undue external influence.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Landry has said those who have raised concerns about the bill’s impact on accreditation are “absolutely not telling the truth.”
In a House Committee hearing on the bill, Hodges said the bill’s language had been okayed by SACSCOC but later said she had not been on the call that a Senate staff attorney made to the organization. A representative from SACSCOC later told the Illuminator the bill’s language would not be a violation of SACSCOC accreditation principles.
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But it’s more complicated than that, a representative from the accrediting body later explained.
A violation of the SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation is not a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down situation.
“It could impact accreditation if it violates the principles,” Rosalind Fuse-Hall, director of legal and governmental affairs for SACSCOC said in an interview. “The board looks at everything on a case-by-case basis.”
Giving the governor the ability to appoint higher education board chairs could impact accreditation if the governor seeks to use that power to enact undue influence on the operations of a higher education institution.
“Elected officials, corporate offices, alumni associations, donors, and religious denominational bodies are examples of persons or bodies that appropriately have interests in the activities of related colleges and universities,” SACSCOC’s “Resource Manual for The Principles of Accreditation” reads. “However, the governing board of the institution has been vested with the authority to make decisions regarding the institution, and no outside person, board, or religious or legislative body should be in a position to interfere with the governing board’s ultimate authority to fulfill its responsibilities or to interfere in the operations of the institution.”
Whether something qualifies as undue influence is up to the SACSCOC Board of Trustees, which is made up of university administrators from the 11 states in the Southeastern region the accreditors serve.
The organization has given notice to several schools where politics have played an outsized role.
In 2020, the organization found South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, also a Republican, had undue influence on the university’s search for a new president. In 2017, it gave the University of Louisville two years to right the ship after then Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, exercised undue influence by abolishing the school’s governing board. In 2021, SACS opened an inquiry into the University of Florida denying professor requests to serve as expert witnesses in a voting rights case.
Similar cases have arisen in other regions and their accrediting bodies.
Hodges has not denied that the intentions behind the bill are political.
“We need to align policy initiatives on the boards and commissions with the Republican governor that we elected to get the job done,” Hodges said.
In a committee hearing last week, Ryan Roberts, Landry’s director of boards and commissions, pointed to states such as Texas and Florida, which give the governor more authority over higher education than Louisiana does.
The comparison alarmed some on the committee, as higher education in those states has become increasingly politicized.
“If it becomes too political and we don’t put the right person in leadership, we’re going to have a problem,” Rep. Ed Larvadain, D-Alexandria, said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to transform New College, a public university in Sarasota, into a conservative institution. His pledge has led to a loss of faculty, a flurry of First Amendment lawsuits and a board of trustees stacked with DeSantis allies who have rejected tenure recommendations.
New College has also been the subject of SACSCOC inquiries.
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