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.
Several Republican appointees voted for Ellis, as did all the 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.
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: On a revote 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.