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Faced with accreditation problems at its Tennessee veterinary school, Lincoln Memorial University is suing the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Lincoln Memorial University, which has a veterinary school that was recently put on accreditation probation, is suing the American Veterinary Medical Association, charging that it's engaging in "anticompetitive accreditation practices."

The complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, asserts that "the AVMA's members have engaged in a conspiracy to control, manipulate, and reduce new competition in the face of an existing market shortage of veterinarians."

A private, not-for-profit university, LMU opened a veterinary school on its Harrogate, Tennessee, campus in 2014 and is seeking to establish a second location in Orange Park, Florida. Fully accredited since 2018, the LMU veterinary program was placed on probationary accreditation last fall.

The only veterinary program accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education is the AVMA's Council on Education. The university contends in its complaint that the AVMA uses the COE "to restrict the accreditation of new and existing veterinary schools by demanding that they meet arbitrary, unreasonable, and impossible-to-meet requirements entirely unrelated to the minimum quality of education necessary to graduate day-one-ready veterinarians with entry-level competency."

Asked for comment, AVMA spokesperson Lisa Howard said by email that "it would be inappropriate to comment on this pending litigation at this time."

The AVMA COE defines its policies and procedures in a 214-page document that includes 11 minimum standards that schools must meet to attain and maintain accreditation. These include clinical resources, facilities and equipment, finances, outcomes assessment and research programs.

The "impossible-to-meet" requirement causing a particular headache for LMU, judging from its complaint, regards research programs.

Its veterinary school was placed on probationary accreditation in October due to a "major deficiency" in its research program and a "minor deficiency" in admissions. Programs have two years to resolve major deficiencies before being moved to terminal accreditation, according to the standard.

No U.S. veterinary school on probation has lost its accreditation in recent memory. But LMU in its complaint suggests that's imminent for its program, saying the "likely effect" of being placed on probation is that "the AVMA COE will terminate LMU-TN's accredited status altogether at its earliest opportunity." It also states an expectation that its planned program in Florida will be denied accreditation.

Under the COE standard, a "college must maintain substantial research activities of high quality that integrate with and strengthen the professional program.... Continuing scholarly productivity within the college must be demonstrated and the college must provide access to opportunities for any interested students in the professional veterinary program to be exposed to or participate in on-going high-quality research."

LMU claims the research provisions are vague and onerous under what appears to be a new interpretation. The lawsuit states that the COE had not taken issue with its research programs before, including when it approved the school's request to add a second cohort of 100 students (for a total of 225 graduating each year) in 2022.

The school says "the AVMA decided to suddenly take issue with the research programs" at LMU "at the same time that the AVMA began making public comments about the threat to the veterinary services market presented by the anticipated increase in the number of veterinary schools."

"The AVMA has recently begun for the first time requiring veterinary schools (including new private non-profit, or in some cases, public, schools) seeking AVMA COE accreditation to offer students access to an unstated and unknowable number and amount of research faculty, research curricula, research facilities, extramural grants, and exposure to graduate students involved in research," the complaint states.

LMU describes this sort of research as almost exclusively the purview of land grant, Ivy League, and/or state-funded universities, which are driven and supported by federal grants, state resources and endowments.

"The AVMA is fully cognizant of the fact that its research requirements simply cannot be met by new private schools funded at the outset almost entirely by tuition alone," the complaint says, adding that meeting the standard is more burdensome today due to recent cuts to federal funding for research.

LMU seeks "an injunction to stop the AVMA from continuing to implement its accreditation standards in an anticompetitive manner" and asks that the court order "the complete and total separation" of the veterinary accrediting body from the trade association.

The university argues that the AVMA's mission to protect and enhance the economic well-being of its members conflicts with the accreditor's mission of "ensuring the entry-level competency of graduates of veterinary schools."

Thirty-six veterinary colleges in the U.S., five in Canada and 18 in other countries are accredited by the AVMA COE. Ten other U.S.-based programs are in the COE accreditation process, including LMU's planned second campus in Florida.

LMU has sued an accreditor, alleging anticompetitive practices, before. In 2011, during an accreditation push for an LMU law school in Knoxville, the university sued the American Bar Association (ABA), which accredits legal education. The suit alleged that the ABA was using accreditation to limit the production of new lawyers.

LMU dropped the suit in 2012, and its law school was provisionally accredited in 2014 and fully accredited in 2019.