The Department of Education’s “National Call to Action”: What higher education’s AI reckoning means for you

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recently issued a “National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards,” asking every postsecondary institution to publicly reaffirm its commitments to rigorous teaching, research, and national service by year-end. The letter poses seven questions; however, one matters most for privacy practitioners: “How will your institution incentivize rigor in the age of AI, combat grade inflation, and prioritize excellence in teaching and learning?”

What the call to action says about AI and student learning

Secretary McMahon’s letter frames AI as having “upended traditional methods of teaching and assessing student learning.” Unlike the administration’s previously attempted 2025 “Compact for Academic Excellence,” which proposed tying federal funding to specific institutional reforms, the Call to Action does not impose new legal mandates or threaten funding consequences for noncompliance. Rather, it asks institutions to publicly explain how they will maintain academic rigor as AI tolls become more embedded in the educational experience.

The AI question sits at the center of a broader concern: if students can use generative AI to produce coursework, how do institutions verify that a degree actually represents mastery of knowledge and skills? This is not merely an academic integrity question, but it rather implicates data governance, assessment design, the permissible scope of AI monitoring tools, and student privacy.

Florida: First in the nation to respond

On August 18, 2026, Florida became the first state to issue a formal joint response, signed by all 12 State University System presidents and all 28 Florida College System presidents. The 30-page document response, delivered to the Department of Education by Governor Ran DeSantis, discusses each of the seven Call to Action areas with citations to existing Florida statutes, Board of Governors (BOG) regulations, and State Board of Education (SBOE) rules.

Florida’s response makes several notable commitments regarding AI in higher education:

• Default prohibition with instructor opt-in. Institutional policies must prohibit students from using AI on graded assignments unless the instructor explicitly permits it, treating AI use as impermissible unless affirmatively authorized at the course level. This will create a patchwork of AI permissions that institutions will need to track for compliance.
• Parental notification for minors. With over 130,000 dual enrollment students, AI policies must include parental notification when a minor will directly be using an AI instructional tool—a consent-adjacent disclosure obligation with clear data privacy implications. This is operationally similar to data processing notices under FERPA and emerging state privacy laws covering minors.
• Syllabus transparency requirements. A proposed BOG regulation would require all course syllabi to disclose both faculty use and permitted student use of AI, mirroring the notice frameworks familiar in privacy law.
• Performance-based accountability. Florida’s funding model relied on post-graduation outcomes (employment, continuing education, median wage) rather than classroom performance metrics, offering an alternative lens on whether AI-assisted instruction delivers workforce-ready graduates.

North Carolina: rigor without rigidity

The University of North Carolina System’s Response, also dated August 18, 2026, takes a different tonal approach. Signed by UNC System President Peter Hans and Board of Governors Chair Kellie Hunt Blue on behalf of 17 constituent institutions serving approximately 260,000 students, the letter emphasizes that AI “changes the tools available to students and faculty” but “does not change our obligation to know whether students have mastered what a degree is supposed to represent.”

North Carolina’s key AI commitments are as follows:

• Faculty owns the assessment. Faculty remain responsible for course design, assessment integrity, and certification of student learning. AI does not shift that accountability.
• AI literacy at scale. A literacy course created with 100 faculty and staff across the state has already been completed by over 4,000 students, with future expansions incorporating employer input on workforce-relevant AI skills. This initiative may also increase student awareness of data privacy implications associated with AI tools.
• Course-level guidance and disclosure. Students must receive explicit guidance of permitted and prohibited AI uses, and work produced with technological assistance must be identified as such. The guidance model parallels layered privacy notices in that students receive specific, contextual information rather than relying on institution-wide blanket policies alone.
• Grade inflation vigilance. The System is reviewing grade patterns alongside evidence of learning and post-graduate success, acknowledging that “AI holds great promise, but we must be vigilant about maintain rigor in our classrooms.”

Why this matters beyond academic integrity

For privacy professionals within the higher education space, the Call to Action and these state responses signal several emerging issues:

1. AI tool procurement and student data. As institutions adopt or restrict AI tools, they will need to evaluate how those tool process student data, including inputs (student work submitted to AI systems), outputs (AI-generated content used in instruction), and metadata (interaction logs, usage patterns). Each of these may constitute education records under FERPA or may trigger obligations under state student privacy laws.
2. Monitoring and detection. If institutions choose to deploy AI detection tools to police unauthorized use, they may be collecting and processing additional student data for behavioral analysis. North Carolina notably relies on faculty judgement rather than detection technology, while Florida’s mandatory policy framework may push institutions toward automated enforcement.
3. Transparency as a regulatory value. Both Florida and North Carolina are building transparency requirements—syllabus disclosures, course-level guidance, parental notice—that echo privacy law’s emphasis on notice and informed consent. Institutions that build these practices now will be better positioned if federal or state regulators formalize AI transparency requirements for education.
4. The minor student dimension. Florida’s dual enrollment parental notification requirement is an early signal that regulators are thinking about minors’ AI exposure in educational settings. With COPPA reform discussions ongoing at the federal level and states like California strengthening children’s data protection, expect more friction around AI tools used with younger students.

Looking ahead

The Call to Action has a soft deadline of year-end 2026 for institutional responses, and more state systems will likely follow Florida’s and North Carolina’s lead with formal replies. For practice practitioners advising higher education clients (or any organization processing student data), these early responses offer a preview of the compliance landscape taking shape. Institutions that are thoughtful now about how AI intersects with academic integrity, student data governance, and transparency will be best positioned for whatever regulatory action follows.

McDonald Hopkins will continue to track institutional responses and emerging regulatory developments in this space.