Addressing the New Standards for Accreditation in Today's Political Climate

The past year has seen many changes in terms of accreditation related to standards of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related to United States federal mandates. These mandates have led several large accrediting bodies to revise their accrediting standards, including the American Psychological Association and the American Bar Association (Barry, 2025). In addition to federal mandates, many state legislatures and university administrators have also implemented DEI-restrictive policies. Actions that are appropriate in one state (e.g, curriculum addressing DEI) may be outlawed in another, and discouraged by university administration in yet another state. This leads to an uneven ability to implement national accreditation standards across the country. In this seminar, members of the American Library Association Committee on Accreditation (CoA) will discuss efforts to maintain the integrity of the 2023 Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies while accommodating the legal and policy-related realities that programs are facing. This panel hopes to provide practical guidance to programs that face anti-DEI legislation. We invite program representatives to this meeting to discuss with us the challenges they face and present suggestions to ameliorate concerns while maintaining strong, stable, and autonomous LIS programs.