Louisiana may soon join other red states in taming politicized accreditation bodies wreaking havoc at public colleges and universities.
Tennessee, meanwhile, has pioneered legislation to track and regulate so-called gender-affirming care in the state.
Both developments are welcome and represent a healthy opposition to the politicization of education and medicine.
Louisiana’s SB304 has been reported favorably by the House Committee on Education and is currently awaiting a full House vote. Whereas current Louisiana law requires that public colleges and universities be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), the new bill would allow schools to “seek a new institutional accreditor from a list of accreditors recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Education.”
In practice, this means that institutions once beholden to SACSCOC may henceforth have the freedom to shop around. Some may eventually choose the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE), a new accreditor founded by six public university systems and previously praised by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as “an alternative to the out-of-touch accreditation system.”
Other states have taken similar approaches. For example, North Carolina and Florida now require public universities to change accreditors every accreditation cycle.
Texas in 2025 passed a law similar to the one Louisiana is now considering and recently ended the American Bar Association’s oversight of its law schools.
Though SACSCOC has argued that its standards do not include DEI ideology, the accreditor’s behavior has often been political. For instance, when North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) attempted to undermine the Republican legislature’s control of the UNC System in 2022, SACSCOC president Belle Wheelan made a personal appearance in Raleigh on the governor’s behalf.
While Louisiana’s bill is part of a trend toward rethinking higher-ed governance, Tennessee’s new law contains important protections against gender ideology.
Recently signed by Governor Bill Lee, HB 754 follows the recommendation of Do No Harm Action’s Detransitioner Bill of Rights by “requir[ing] gender clinics accepting funds from [the] state [for] gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures” (emphasis added).
The law requires that insurance companies “providing coverage of gender transition procedures … also cover detransition procedures.”
Additionally, the law mandates that “certain gender clinics and insurance entities … report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
Policymakers and the public need further information about the long-term care outcomes attending gender dysphoria, as well as a clearer sense of how frequently gender-related interventions are undertaken in the state. Tennessee deserves praise for protecting vulnerable residents, many of whom are children when first introduced to the idea of sex-denying interventions. To the extent that the new measure forces accountability into a runaway system of “care,” it will do real good.