Wall Street Journal, Trump Administration Attacks Bar Association’s Power to Accredit Law Schools:
The Trump administration is opening a new front in its campaign to remake higher education: threatening the American Bar Association’s power to accredit law schools.
On Friday, the Education Department is taking the first step toward removing the ABA’s authority to accredit law schools, said David Barker, assistant secretary of education.
The action escalates the Trump administration’s long-running feud with the nation’s premier legal organization, which it has accused of promoting a progressive agenda, including pushing law schools to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion policies. …
The recommendation to reject the ABA is accompanied by a nearly 500-page Education Department report, more than a year in the making. It asserts that the ABA’s accreditation wing isn’t sufficiently independent of its profession. That independence is designed to ensure the accreditor focuses on education quality.
Any final decision to reject the ABA is two steps and several months away; the outcome isn’t certain. The Education Department’s initial recommendation goes next to a panel that reviews accreditors, which then makes a recommendation to Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent.
If the ABA did lose its accrediting power, law schools affiliated with a university would likely just use the university’s accreditor instead. Unaffiliated law schools would need to find a new accreditor.
The accreditation salvo brings together two Trump targets: the ABA and higher education.
Washington Post, Trump Administration Moves to Strip Bar Association’s Power to Accredit Law Schools:
President Donald Trump and other Republicans have accused the American Bar Association of liberal bias, promoting DEI and pushing a political agenda in law schools. …
Austen Parrish, dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law, argues that the administration is conflating the accreditation arm of the ABA with the broader association.
“You see people commenting about things that the American Bar Association has done that have nothing to do with the [accrediting] council,” he said.“It’s really silly.”
Attacking the accrediting council over its stance on diversity, Parrish said, speaks to the Trump administration’s larger agenda.
“Five years ago the ABA, like the rest of the world, was concerned about discrimination and had standards that required schools to take concrete steps to ensure nondiscrimination,” he said. “Whether that’s DEI in the way the administration sees it … I view it differently.”
- ABA Journal, US Department of Education Recommends Removing the ABA Legal Ed Council’s Accrediting Powers
- Above the Law, ABA Going To Lose Law School Accreditor Role On Same Day It Surrenders To Trump Administration
- Law.com, ABA Law School Accreditation Under Attack by Trump Administration
- Derek Muller (Notre Dame), NACIQI, Department of Education Come for ABA accreditation—What It Means, and What It Doesn’t, For Now
- New York Daily News, Trump Pushes to End American Bar Association Oversight of Law Schools
- Reuters, Trump Administration Moves to End Attorney Group’s Law School Oversight
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