When I was a boy, my grandfather spoke to me about the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez with great esteem. And with good reason. It graduates many more Latino/a engineers than any other university in the world. Various departments on campus receive funding from NASA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other respected institutions. 98 percent of enrollment is Latino/Hispanic, and over 60 percent receive Pell Grants.

But the Middle States Commission on Higher Education has threatened the UPR’s accreditation in response to the university’s ongoing student strike in protest of proposed brutal austerity measures. All eleven campuses in the UPR system have been occupied in recent weeks.

But the accreditation board should take a broader view of what is happening on the island. Like Detroit, Harrisburg, and Orange County, California, the Puerto Rican government approved a comprehensive bankruptcy package to relieve unpayable debt. But as US policy is to “make all needful rules and regulations” on the island, the bankruptcy protection was ignored and ultimately nullified.