The future of American Bar Association accreditation of law schools is uncertain. Dan Rodriguez in this piece on his Substack looks at the stakeholders in accreditation reform in the wake of the Council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar ’s recent rescission of its diversity standard in the face of Trump administration pressure.

In thinking about the appropriate stakeholders in the accreditation process (the public, law students, deans, etc.), Rodriguez writes that the Council should return to the “foundational purposes of accreditation . . . . drawing from the roots of occupational licensing & regulation in the U.S. At the core is the idea that certain rules are necessary to ensure the protection of the public.” He also cautions that “external stakeholders such as public officials or ideology-driven groups, should be considered stakeholders only insofar as their interests are tied too to the foundational purposes of accreditation.” (bold in original). 

There is much grist for the mill here.