The Biden family is having a laundry list of issues add up — and it appears the Florida governor is looking to pile them on, as well.
On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis — a Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race — sued the Biden administration “to ensure freedom in higher education.”
DeSantis’ administration announced the legal move in a news release, blasting President Joe Biden’s Department of Education by name.
“I will not allow Joe Biden’s Department of Education to defund America’s #1 higher education system all because we refuse to bow to unaccountable accreditors who think they should run Florida’s public universities,” DeSantis said in the release.
The complaint itself exposes the way in which the Biden administration green-lit several private accrediting agencies to be the ultimate gatekeepers of which universities and colleges can receive federal funding from the Department of Education.
Effectively, for any school to receive that federal funding, it needs to be accredited by one of several private accreditors.
Florida took issue with that and the lack of transparency surrounding how these gatekeepers are chosen.
“Nonetheless, in higher education, Congress has ceded unchecked power to private accrediting agencies to dictate education standards to colleges and universities, and it has forbidden the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) from meaningfully reviewing, approving, or rejecting those standards,” the complaint reads.
Will DeSantis win his lawsuit?
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DeSantis added: “Throughout my time in office, I have made it a priority to bring transparency and accountability to higher education and to reorient the mission of our colleges and universities away from purveying destructive ideologies and back toward the pursuit of truth and the preparation of our students for success.
“The Biden administration’s attempts to block these reforms is an abuse of federal power, and with this lawsuit, we will ensure that Florida’s pursuit of educational excellence will continue.”
Joining the governor is Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
“For too long, private academic accreditors have been holding our colleges and universities hostage,” Moody said in the release. “Thanks to the fearless leadership of Governor DeSantis, we are fighting to take back our public postsecondary education system from unelected private organizations that have no accountability or oversight.”
DeSantis has long championed transparency and freedom in education, so the lawsuit comes as little surprise.
For Biden, however, the lawsuit is just the latest in a harrowing string of PR nightmares.
While the president grapples with this DeSantis lawsuit, he’s also having to answer for his son, Hunter, who has his own laundry list of issues, including a pair of tax charges. Many on the right have complained that the relatively light punishment bestowed on Hunter Biden in a plea agreement this week was a sign of nepotism and a two-tiered justice system.
Biden is also dealing with impeachment proceedings in the House over the crisis at the nation’s southern border.
But even if absolutely nothing comes of any of these legal issues, his biggest and most glaring issue persists: He is still a historically unpopular president seeking re-election in 2024.
