The MacArthur Society held a Commanders Call with guest speaker Brig. General Mick Zais, PhD, US Army retired, and on the Board of Directors of the MacArthur Society and Vice Chairman of STARRS.

He served as the Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education during the first Trump Administration. Previously, Gen. Zais was elected South Carolina’s 17th State Superintendent of Education. He has served as Commissioner of Higher Education in South Carolina for eight years, and for 10 years as president of Newberry College in that state.

Gen Zais retired as an infantry brigadier general after 31 years in the US Army, including service in Vietnam, Korea, Panama, and Kuwait. He is a paratrooper and Ranger and is a 1969 graduate of West Point.

Gen. Zais talked about accreditation for service academies and why it’s important to choose the right accrediting organization. Many college accreditation organizations are consumed with woke ideology and impose this agenda on the colleges they evaluate, including dictating what the curriculum and culture will be. However, recent laws have broken the monopoly of regional accreditors which means schools can now choose which organization they use.

Gen. Zais explained how important it is for service academies, especially West Point, to have an accreditation organization that focuses on basics rather than pushing a divisive, anti-American leftwing ideology. See below for a summary of his talk.

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(Generated by AI) Accreditation matters at West Point. It’s the gateway to federal recognition of academic quality, eligibility for federal student aid, credibility with employers and graduate programs, and confidence among the American people. But the process is long, bureaucratic, and increasingly vulnerable to woke ideological pressure. The challenge is ensuring the Academy keeps the right accreditation—without letting “woke” frameworks dilute mission, standards, and warfighting focus.

What accreditation actually does

• It’s a peer-review process recognized by the Department of Education that evaluates mission, governance, finances, programs, faculty, student services, athletics, admissions, and more.
• It happens on a fixed cycle (often every 7–10 years) and requires a massive self-study, followed by a site visit from a team of higher-ed peers.
• Specialized accreditations (like ABET for engineering) sit on top of the institutional accreditation and validate specific programs.

Where ideology creeps in

• Inputs over outcomes: Many standards reward process checklists and fashionable woke language over measurable readiness and results. That opens the door to politicized “compliance” rather than mission effectiveness.
• Peer review bias: Teams are drawn from contemporary academia, where prevailing assumptions can favor DEI mandates, “climate” measures, and left-leaning ideological litmus tests unrelated to combat effectiveness.
• Mission drift pressures: Vague requirements around campus “culture,” student life, and governance can be interpreted in ways that push social engineering over warfighter preparation.
• Administrative burden: Thousands of pages of reports incentivize buzzwords and box-checking—crowding out sober assessments of officer development, ethical leadership, and battlefield competence.

What’s uniquely at stake for West Point

• Federal aid eligibility and national standing depend on keeping recognized accreditation, even though the process is “voluntary.”
• The Academy’s legitimacy comes from producing leaders of character who can fight and win—standards that don’t always map neatly onto higher-ed fashions.
• The military profession requires unity of purpose, chain-of-command clarity, and merit-based excellence—areas where woke ideological demands can conflict with readiness.

Practical steps to defend the mission and keep accreditation

• Anchor every standard to the mission: Map accreditation criteria to Army Values, warfighting competencies, ethical leadership, and graduate outcomes (branch performance, retention, command selection, operational effectiveness).
• Lead with outcomes, not rhetoric: Use hard data—performance in the force, fitness/readiness metrics, honor code outcomes, academic rigor, STEM mastery—to satisfy quality benchmarks without ideological packaging.
• Choose and shape peer engagement wisely: Where possible, request reviewers with service-academy or professional-school backgrounds who respect mission-driven education. Flag conflicts of interest early.
• Fortify specialized accreditations: Keep ABET and other programmatic seals strong; they’re outcomes-focused and harder to politicize.
• Keep the self-study apolitical and evidence-based: Avoid euphemisms and woke ideological jargon. Demonstrate compliance through policy clarity, training rigor, assessment cycles, and corrective-action loops tied to mission.
• Document command climate in professional terms: Translate “campus culture” into officer development, discipline, cohesion, and ethical decision-making—using surveys, inspections, and leadership evaluations grounded in the profession of arms.
• Protect academic freedom and professional standards: Ensure faculty qualifications and governance are documented in a way that preserves rigorous scholarship and operational relevance—not woke ideological conformity.
• Build an internal red team: Before submission, have a cross-functional team (line officers, faculty, legal, IR/assessment) stress-test the self-study against both the standards and mission purity.
• Advocate for reform at the policy level: Support efforts to keep accreditors focused on quality assurance and outcomes, not woke social policy mandates—without jeopardizing DoE recognition or federal aid.

West Point can maintain unimpeachable accreditation while resisting ideological capture by translating every requirement into its core purpose: producing leaders of character who can fight and win. Ground the process in evidence, outcomes, and the profession of arms—and keep the Academy’s compass true to mission, merit, and excellence.