At the opening of today’s meeting of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), members of the panel have just reached a tie vote on the selection of a new chair.  Zakiya Smith Ellis, a former New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education and NACIQI’s current vice chair, received eight votes, as did Jay Greene, formerly of the Heritage Foundation and now Director of Research at the group Do No Harm, which says it focuses on “keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” meaning it works against diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and the rights of transgender people.

Reflecting NACIQI’s unusual appointment system, Smith Ellis was appointed by Senate Democrats, while Greene was appointed, just last month, by Trump Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

Three Republican appointees voted for Ellis, as did all of the five Democratic appointees present. Democratic appointee Roslyn Clark Artis, the president of Benedict College, was absent. One seat on the 18-slot panel is currently vacant.

Following the tie vote, the meeting went into recess.  The NACIQI meeting is being held in-person at the U.S. Department of Education headquarters in Washington.  The Department is not permitting the public to attend in person; instead there is a livestream.

NACIQI reviews the performance of, and provides the Department with non-binding recommendations on renewal of, the private accrediting agencies that in turn review colleges and universities and serve as gatekeepers for eligibility to receive federal student grants and loans.

At the last NACIQI meeting, in February, Smith Ellis, then the NACIQI vice chair, was made the chair when then-chair Claude Presnell, a Republican appointee who had served as chair during President Biden’s term, announced his resignation. That appointment seemed to follow NACIQI rules, and there was no public objection by any of the committee members. But in July, the Trump Department of Education declared Smith’s appointment to be “erroneous.” 

This story will be updated.

UPDATE 12-16-25 10:05 am: On a re-vote after the recess, Greene was elected over Ellis by a vote of 8-7, with Jennifer Blum, an appointee of House Republicans, switching her vote from Smith Ellis to abstain.  Blum stated as the vote was taken, “This is not my character, but I am abstaining.” I don’t know what that means. Blum is an education industry lawyer and a former senior vice president at for-profit college operation Laureate Education.

UPDATE 12-16-25 10:28 am: Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent just addressed the meeting, declaring it was a new day and an end to the status quo and box-checking in accreditation. NACIQI member Robert Shireman then commented, noting that he had long publicly opposed box-checking by accreditors and the Department. Shireman asked Kent about what Shireman described as “extreme partisanship in the way this meeting is organized,” the fact that, for the first time as far as he knew, NACIQI members were separated by the party that appointed them — seated by party, introduced by party, voting on the chair by party — and he described the post-tie-vote conduct of the Department as “manipulative.” Kent responded that Shireman had “dated himself” by his comments. He ignored the question about partisanship, instead telling the committee to “buckle up” because the Trump administration was going to “fix” higher education.

UPDATE 12-16-25 12:o1 pm: With DEI opponent Jay Greene now holding the chair gavel, NACIQI is considering the renewal application of Middle States Commission on Higher Education, accreditor of numerous schools in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.