NDC Calls on Dept. of Ed to Investigate Appointment to Negotiated Rulemaking Committees

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona today the National Defense Committee (NDC) calls for diverse, unbiased representation for veterans and U.S. military members in the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking.

“The Department’s negotiated rulemaking has immense, and I would say capricious, bearing on military and veteran students’ access to higher education,” Bob Carey, executive director of the NDC, writes.

Barmak Nassirian, vice president for higher education policy at Veterans Education Success (VES), has served as the sole representative for veterans and military service members on at least four negotiated rulemaking committees—despite having no direct military experience and being a vocal opponent of career colleges.

“It defies credulity to imagine veterans are adequately represented by any one individual repeatedly serving as their representative, much less an individual whose qualifications, experience, and policy objective positions appear misaligned with the constituency,” Carey notes.

Mr. Nassirian has accused career colleges of “raping and pillaging” students, compared them to “door-to-door Bible salesmen,” and claims their education model is “simply a matter of getting cohort after cohort of fresh, warm bodies through the door.”

His statements “belittle the tens of thousands of veterans who have chosen career colleges to advance their educations and careers and ignore that many veterans either decide not to go, or cannot gain admission to, traditional higher-ed schools,” the letter notes.

In 2022 a U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation found Mr. Nassirian’s organization, VES, violated conflict of interest laws. The matter was not resolved because VES members refused to cooperate.

“Such violations should preclude any organization’s members from participating in the Department’s negotiated rulemaking process,” the letter states. However, Mr. Nassirian was appointed to another negotiated rulemaking committee fewer than 18 months later.

“It exceeds any reasonable credulity to believe that… [Nassirian] could be considered a reasonable Committee member who would provide objective, unbiased, comprehensive, and diverse representation of any stakeholder category, let alone those of military and veteran students.”

Carey concludes by calling for a “deep and diverse bench of qualified participants” to better represent veterans’ and military service members’ interests and to ensure continued access to higher education options that meets their unique needs.

“I urge you to direct your staff to conduct a full investigation into the negotiated rulemaking appointment process and to take corrective action as necessary.”