Xavier pharmacy on probation

NEW ORLEANS—The Xavier University College of Pharmacy, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, was put on accreditation probation for the first time ever, and asked a federal court to void that decision.
“We think we are currently in full compliance,” university President Norman Francis said Friday.
The college was reaccredited in January. But making that accreditation probationary damages the school’s reputation and threatens its ability to secure federal money for students, Xavier said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.
“It will also impede Xavier’s ability to hire and retain quality faculty and staff,” it said in the suit filed one day after the university was told that the council would not remove the probationary status.
The college is one of the top draws at the nation’s only historically black Catholic university. About half of its 670 students are Asian, white or other non-black races and the school estimates that about a quarter of the nation’s African-American pharmacists have graduated from the college.
U.S. District Judge Lance Africk scheduled a hearing last Wednesday on Xavier’s request.