ABA Repeals Law School DEI Rule as US Accreditation Decision Looms

The American Bar Association (ABA) on Tuesday officially eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirement for law schools, but it remains unclear whether the move will be enough to preserve the organisation’s long-held status as the federal government’s recognised accreditor of US law schools.

 

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar – the arm of the national lawyers’ organisation that oversees law schools – voted at a special meeting to remove a requirement that law schools demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions and student programming.

 

Council Chair Melissa Hart said during the virtual meeting that the vote did not reflect a change in the organisation’s values, but was a “pragmatic” choice intended to preserve a national system of law school accreditation.

 

In a statement following the vote, Hart said repealing the rule was “necessary to preserve recognition by a growing number of state courts” and the US Department of Education.

 

The Education Department in August recommended that the ABA be stripped of its role as the recognised accreditor of law schools, a position it has held since 1952. The department concluded in a report that the law school council was not “separate and independent” from the wider ABA, as required. The report also criticised the ABA for being too slow to revise the now-defunct diversity rule.

 

An Education Department committee is scheduled to consider the recommendation at a meeting on September 23, with a final decision on the ABA’s accreditation status expected in the coming months. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday’s vote.

 

The repeal ends a nearly two-year effort to revise the ABA rule following the US Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling barring colleges from considering race in admissions. The ABA subsequently began efforts to eliminate the rule altogether as Republican President Donald Trump sought to end DEI initiatives in the public and private sectors during his second term.

 

The ABA’s law school diversity rule was suspended in February 2025, just weeks after Trump returned to the White House.

 

The ABA has faced unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration over its diversity initiatives, criticism of administration officials’ attacks on judges and various lawsuits against the administration. Republican-controlled state supreme courts have also taken steps to limit the ABA’s role in accreditation.

 

Texas, Florida and Alabama have each moved in recent months to sideline the ABA in their lawyer licensing processes, while several other Republican-controlled states are considering similar measures.

 

The law school council has sought to emphasise that it operates primarily separately from the wider ABA, which a White House spokesperson in March 2025 described as a “snooty” organisation of “leftist lawyers”. Those efforts have so far done little to ease the pressure on the ABA.