Restoring State Sovereignty and Safeguarding Chiropractic
Originally published: 2025-03-27
The chiropractic profession stands at a critical juncture. The longstanding entrenchment of private corporate entities—most notably the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) and the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE)—in chiropractic regulation has created a monopolistic framework that is increasingly incompatible with the principles of constitutional governance, educational diversity, and state sovereignty.
Now, with the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education gaining momentum—a goal long championed by liberty-oriented thinkers - states must seize this moment to reclaim their rightful regulatory authority. If chiropractic regulatory boards do not act proactively, they risk leaving thousands of chiropractic students and graduates in limbo, vulnerable to the collapse of a centralized system they never directly authorized.
The Historical Hijacking of State Authority
The current chiropractic regulatory landscape is not the product of organic public policy development or state-led oversight. It is the result of a strategic, decades-long campaign by the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards (FCLB) and its patrons, which methodically lobbied state after state to enshrine CCE-only language into their licensing statutes and administrative codes following the 1974 recognition by the United States Department of Education.
Acting not as an impartial facilitator but as a policy arm for the CCE and NBCE, the FCLB helped displace the state's role in assessing educational quality and licensure readiness, placing it instead in the hands of private corporations. In doing so, the FCLB facilitated the construction of a closed-loop regulatory monopoly, in which:
The CCE unilaterally decides which chiropractic schools are legitimate.
The NBCE, with CCE’s policy blessing (e.g., Policy 56), imposes an ever-growing battery of standardized exams.
The schools are stripped of their historic role in certifying student competency.
This process has resulted in a regulatory regime in which neither the schools nor the states have meaningful input into defining competency or licensing criteria. The role of educational institutions has been relegated to “training centers” that must conform to CCE mandates, and state boards have become rubber stamps for NBCE testing protocols.
CCE, NBCE, and the Centralization of Power
Today, the CCE remains the sole federally recognized accreditor for chiropractic education, and the NBCE continues to create new exams without meaningful checks or public accountability. Each new NBCE exam adds costs, delays, and uncertainty for students—most of whom are already navigating burdensome debt.
What’s worse, these exams do not arise from legislative or public regulatory need. They arise from a self-reinforcing relationship between the NBCE and CCE, enabled by language codified into law via the FCLB’s advocacy. This system strips schools of the ability to determine whether a graduate is competent, despite decades of experience doing just that. Meanwhile, the NBCE profits from students' mandated participation in an endless exam pipeline.
This isn't regulation. This is cartel behavior.
The Looming Crisis for Chiropractic Graduates
With the future of the U.S. Department of Education in question, and national accreditation frameworks potentially collapsing under political or legal scrutiny, chiropractic students face increasing vulnerability. If the CCE were to lose federal recognition or access to institutional aid, or if NBCE testing were successfully challenged in court, thousands of chiropractic graduates could find themselves unemployable through no fault of their own.
State boards, having surrendered their gatekeeping function decades ago, would have no independent system to determine the legitimacy of an educational program or the competency of a graduate.
This is not just a policy failure. It is a betrayal of public trust—and it is one that can still be corrected.
Reclaiming Regulatory Authority
State chiropractic boards must immediately:
Remove CCE and NBCE-specific language from their statutes, rules, and regulations.
Adopt uniform, state-determined standards for recognizing accrediting agencies and competency assessment.
Restore the authority of educational institutions to certify clinical and academic competency.
Establish public and transparent processes for approving multiple accrediting bodies and credentialing mechanisms that reflect educational diversity and professional autonomy.
This approach restores constitutional balance. It returns control to the states, promotes pluralism in chiropractic education, enhances institutional accountability, and protects students and patients from systemic regulatory failure.
Conclusion
The current dominance of the CCE, NBCE, and their legislative enabler—the FCLB—represents a regulatory model built on monopoly, coercion, and exclusion, not public service or professional merit. It is the result of a political deal struck in the 1970s, not a reflection of what’s best for the chiropractic profession or the public it serves.
If state chiropractic boards fail to act now, they will not only inherit the fallout from federal withdrawal—they will also own the consequences of decades of inaction.
But if they rise to the moment—if they reclaim their rightful role—they can usher in a new era of chiropractic regulation: one rooted in freedom, federalism, diversity, and professional excellence.
Now is the time to act.
