Department of Attorney General
To: Joel B. Wulff, D.C.
Executive Director
Board of Chiropractic Examiners
Special Assistant
Attorney General
Subject: SCASA
You have advised me that an accreditation agency known as Straight Chiropractic Academic Standards Association (SCASA) was granted probationary approval by the U.S. Office of Education on August 30, 1988. You then ask whether graduates of chiropractic colleges which have since been accredited by SCASA are eligible for Minnesota licensure.
Minnesota Statutes 148.06, subd. 1 (1988) provides in most pertinent part as follows: "No person shall practice chiropractic in this state without first being licensed by the state board of chiropractic examiners. The applicant shall have earned at least one-half of all academic credits required for awarding of a baccalaureate degree from the University of Minnesota, or other university, college, or community college of equal standing, in subject matter determined by the board, and taken a four-year resident course of at least eight months each in a school or college of chiropractic that is fully credited by the Council on Chiropractic Education, or fully accredited by an agency approved by the United States Office of Education, or their successors, as of January 1, 1988." (Underlining added)
Based on the foregoing, license eligibility requires, among other things, graduation from a school or college which has been accredited by an appropriate agency, provided that the accreditation agency itself must have been approved as of January 1, 1988.1 SCASA was not approved until August 30, 1988. Accordingly, under the plain language of the statute, a graduate of a school or college accredited by SCASA would not be eligible for board licensure.2
- The January 1, 1988 cutoff might also be read to mean the date by which the school or college must have been accredited. Any such ambiguity would appear to be without legal significance, however, as the statute does not recognize accreditation unless conferred by an approved agency.
- Canons of construction establish a presumption against the retroactive application of a statute unless it is clearly and manifestly intended by the legislature. Minn. Stat 645.21 (1988). "[A]s of January 1, 1988" constitutes an amendment to the above-quoted portion of Minnesota Statutes 148.06, subd. 1. The amendment took effect August 1, 1988. Laws 1988, ch. 642, 6; Minn. Stat. 645.02 (1988). Because the amendment's effective date is later than January 1, 1988, it is arguable that a retroactive application is proposed. Nevertheless, the legislature's use of a specific earlier date, namely, January 1, 1988, evidences an unavoidable implication that a retroactive effect was intended. Moreover, even if the amendment's actual effective date of August 1, 1988 were utilized as the cutoff rather than any retroactive date, the outcome in the present case would be unchanged since SCASA was not approved until August 30, 1988.
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