The association said continuing to enforce diversity, equity, and inclusion standards could expose law schools to potential legal violations.
The American Bar Association (ABA) is suspending its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards for accredited law schools in response to mounting pressure from the Trump administration to dismantle such initiatives.
On Feb. 21, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar—the sole accrediting body for most American law schools—voted to suspend enforcement of its “Diversity and Inclusion” standard through August as it considers permanent policy changes.
The council will also review its “Non‐Discrimination and Equality of Opportunity” criteria, according to the
ABA Journal, the association’s official publication.
The decision follows the Trump administration’s intensified efforts to eliminate DEI programs within federal agencies while seeking to reduce government expenses and red tape.
In a Feb. 14 letter, the U.S. Department of Education
reminded education officials in all 50 states that they must end racial preferences in admissions, hiring, and other areas by the end of February to comply with Title VI, the federal law prohibiting race-based discrimination in education. The department has already
removed all DEI references from its documents and official webpages, dissolved its Diversity & Inclusion Council, and placed employees charged with leading DEI initiatives on leave.
The education department further referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2023 ruling that struck down “race-conscious” college admissions as unconstitutional, indicating that it would apply the decision “more broadly” in its policies.
State officials have also pressured the ABA to drop DEI accreditation requirements. In January, 21 Republican state attorneys general sent a
joint letter urging the association to bring its policies in line with the Supreme Court ruling. Many of these states require bar applicants to graduate from an ABA-accredited law school.
“The committee’s view is that with the executive orders and the law being in flux, it would be an extreme hardship for law schools if our standards were to require them to do certain things that may cause them to take more litigation risks and potentially violate the law,” said Daniel Thies, chair-elect of the ABA council and co-chair of its Strategic Review Committee, according to ABA Journal.
The decision drew praise from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has
directed her department’s civil rights division to “investigate, eliminate, and penalize illegal DEI and DEIA preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities in the private sector and in educational institutions that receive federal funds.”
“This is a victory for common sense! We are bringing meritocracy back to the legal system,” she
wrote on social media platform X.
Recent weeks have seen escalating tensions between the ABA and the Trump administration. On Feb. 10, the organization publicly
denounced the president’s efforts to dismantle DEI, limit birthright citizenship, and shrink the federal workforce, calling them “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law.”
On Feb. 14, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson
banned the agency’s political appointees from holding ABA leadership posts, participating in ABA events, or renewing their memberships. The move severed what Ferguson called a “cozy relationship” between federal antitrust enforcers and the ABA’s Antitrust Law Section.
“The ABA’s long history of leftist advocacy and its recent attacks on the Trump-Vance Administration’s governing agenda ... have made this relationship untenable,” he wrote in a letter to FTC staff.
The ABA is not the first influential college accreditor to retreat from DEI policies. On Feb. 21, ABET—which accredits science and engineering programs, including those at MIT and Stanford University—removed DEI and accessibility from its accreditation criteria, marking another shift away from institutional DEI mandates.
