Trump Pressure Forces ABA Weakening of Law School DEI Standard

An American Bar Association council on Friday watered down DEI requirements for law school accreditation, as the Trump administration and Republican-led states challenge the group’s role in certifying legal education.

Rather than requiring diversity, the ABA is replacing lists of demographic categories with references to federal, state, and local laws that prohibit discrimination, under a vote by the ABA’s accreditation arm. The proposed changes now go out for a comment period.

The goal is to “simplify the requirements and reduce burden on law schools,” according to an ABA memo describing the change. The action also responds to Education Department criticism that the ABA has suspended, though not abolished, diversity, equity and inclusion standards, the memo said.

The ABA is trying to hang on to a role it has held since 1952 as the as the US government’s agency for the accrediting of JD degree programs. The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has accredited and approved 198 institutions and programs that confer JD degrees, according to the ABA website.

President Donald Trump’s administration has challenged the ABA’s accreditation role.

US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson in March said that states should stop relying on the ABA to vet and approve law schools. The organization is “effectively” a branch of the Democratic Party he said then, comparing it to the Communist Party of America.

“I find it, in a federal system, extraordinarily strange that we have one single national organization, effectively run out of Washington and New York, decide what it takes to be a good lawyer in Texas, or decide what it takes to be a good lawyer in Florida or Tennessee,” Ferguson said at the March event organized by the Federalist Society, a conservative think-tank.

Then Education Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor sent schools a letter last year telling them to comply with federal law, which does not allow for race- or gender-based policies, or risk losing federal funding. Then Attorney General Pam Bondi also urged the ABA council last year to scrap diversity requirements for law schools or risk losing its accrediting power.

States are also challenging the ABA’s role.

The Florida Supreme Court in January cleared the way for students from schools not accredited by the ABA to possibly sit for bar exams in the state. That same month, the Texas Supreme Court ended its state’s reliance on the ABA to accredit law schools by finalizing a rule that places the state high court in charge of such designations.

During Friday’s ABA meeting, several council members, including Mary Lu Bilek, Alicia Alvarez and Beto Juarez, opposed the repeal of the DEI mandate. However, a majority voted to send the full repeal to the ABA House of Delegates for a vote in August.

“This vote is not a statement about any individual member’s commitment to diversity or inclusion,” council member Melissa Hart said at the Friday meeting.

The diversity change comes one year after the council suspended another DEI mandate for law schools, so schools were not forced to decide whether to comply with the accreditation system or federal guidance. That suspension ends in August.