Unblinding Lady Justice

The American Bar Association’s (ABA) political activism when it comes to bias against conservative judges and support for left-wing causes has long been established. What is less well known is the enormous power the ABA has wielded over the legal education system as the nation’s sole law school accreditor for almost 75 years.

Now the Trump administration has a chance to end that monopoly when the ABA’s accreditation authority comes up for renewal at the end of September.

Without accreditation, a law school’s students can lose access to federal financial aid and, in many states, their ability to sit for the bar exam. The ABA has a lengthy track record of abusing its accreditation power to strong-arm law schools into discriminatory programing and admissions standards.

For example, the ABA’s accreditation Standard 206 “Diversity and Inclusion Requirement” forced law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” in admissions and hiring.

The discriminatory requirement blatantly violated the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions. But it was not until Sept. 8 of this year, with its accreditation recognition on the line, that the ABA officially voted to remove Standard 206.

Their “Curriculum” Standard 303(c) requires law schools to educate students on “bias, cross-cultural competency and racism.” In some cases, this has led schools to impose DEI in violation of Civil Rights laws.

This kind of pressure on schools has been going on for decades. As noted by two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the ABA spent years in the 2000s pressuring George Mason University’s law school over its refusal to use racial preferences in admission, threatening sanctions as it pushed the school to change its policies. In 2021, Ohio Northern University’s law school received threatening letters from the ABA questioning its commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Just last year, St. Thomas University College of Law, a Catholic institution, received noncompliance notices involving alleged concerns over how its religious identity affected student organizations. This is even though accreditation standards allow religious institutions to adopt policies related to their religious affiliation. The ABA reversed course after political pressure and public criticism.

A Pacific Legal Foundation analysis of law schools’ accreditation reports concluded, “The ABA clearly uses its standards to pressure law schools to unconstitutionally or unlawfully adapt their policies and practices to achieve the ABA’s diversity goals.”

Beyond the bias and coercion, the ABA’s dual role as both a professional trade association and the accreditor controlling access to the profession raises antitrust concerns. Some of the ABA’s accreditation standards serve the interests of its members without providing any significant educational benefit. They unnecessarily inflate costs and reduce competition, acting as a financial barrier to entry for both prospective students and new law schools entering the market.

The ABA’s stranglehold on legal education can be broken. States are already forging other paths. Florida and Texas have moved away from exclusive reliance on ABA accreditation, Alabama now permits some graduates of non-ABA programs to sit for its bar exam, and similar reviews are underway in other states. Law schools could also be accredited through their full university. The Department of Education recently proposed a rule that would make it easier to recognize new accreditors.

The ABA has proven itself completely unqualified to serve as a neutral gatekeeper to the legal profession. The Department of Education should no longer allow it to enforce ideological conformity, require discriminatory DEI policies, and engage in potentially anti-competitive conduct. The freedom of our nation’s brightest young legal minds depends on it.