Utah Rep. Burgess Owens spearheads efforts to codify Trump executive orders on education
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a slate of education-related executive orders this week, with lawmakers already preparing legislation to codify those directives into law.
Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, is among those making efforts, with one bill making its way through Congress on the college accreditation process. The Accreditation for College Excellence Act, or ACE Act, would prohibit college accreditors from implementing certain standards related to diversity, equity and inclusion as part of their approval process.
'The ACE Act would make sure … (credits) are focused on merit and not DEI,' Owens told the Deseret News in an interview. 'Those kind of things will be very important for us to make sure we have transparency (and that) those who are supporting our colleges are friends and not putting ideologies and their thought process into our kids' minds.'
Owens introduced that bill earlier this month, and it is currently making its way through the House Committee on Education and Workforce, of which the Utah Republican is a member. A similar bill passed the House last year, although it was never considered by the then-Democratically controlled Senate.
The bill closely mirrors the executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday, which directs the Department of Education to consider revoking the recognition of some accreditors if they mandate DEI standards.
Trump's executive order would direct the secretary of Education to hold accreditors accountable 'through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition' if they are found 'to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' initiatives.'
Accreditors have pushed back on accusations that they mandate DEI standards, pointing to colleges in states with DEI-related bans that have not had issues getting accreditation.
Owens' bill has similar language that would prohibit agencies from requiring, encouraging or coercing an academic institution 'to support or oppose specific partisan or political beliefs, viewpoints on social or political issues, or support the disparate treatment of any individual or group.'
Although the bill did not make it through Congress last year, Owens expressed confidence that Trump's executive could help spur a vote on the legislation relatively soon.
'No question about it,' Owens said when asked if the executive order will help speed along the process.
'We're getting things done the quickest way possible through executive orders,' Owens said. 'The people can understand what we're trying to get accomplished from the president from his pulpit, we can talk about why it's necessary — and all we do is just follow up with the legislation that will make sure that it stays there forever.'
While presidents have the authority to issue executive orders, those can be easily overturned by the following president with a similar stroke of the pen. As a result, lawmakers in the president's party will typically seek to pass legislation codifying those orders into law so that it would be far more difficult to be repealed later on.
Trump signed another executive order to require 'full and timely disclosure by higher education institutions' when they receive gifts by foreign nations. That order is similar to a bill that already passed the House earlier this year, which contained proposals drafted by Owens.
The Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions, or DETERRENT Act, seeks to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to expand current requirements and in some cases ban certain contracts that have not received a waiver from the Department of Education.
Under the DETERRENT Act, the foreign gift reporting threshold for colleges and universities would be significantly reduced from $250,000 to $50,000. That threshold would be further reduced to $0 for countries of concern.
The bill includes several provisions in Owens' Reporting on Investments in Foreign Adversaries, which implements increased reporting requirements for private universities with endowments above $6 billion or investments above $250 million.
Trump signed other orders, including one looking to crack down on behavioral issues in K-12 schools, which Owens says could be quickly followed by legislation.
'The upside is that we have things that we can push through. It's a slow process, but because of what the president can do with executive orders, we can start implementing it quicker and people can start to see the results of it,' Owens said. 'And it helps us on our side to get the support, the groundswell that we need to push things through.'
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