By Karen Sloan
– A plan to eliminate the American Bar Association‘s longstanding diversity, inclusion and equity requirement for law schools hit a snag Tuesday when the organization’s policy-making body rejected the change – a move that could escalate tensions between the ABA and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The ABA could still push forward with the proposal, but Tuesday’s vote delays the diversity rule’s elimination and could imperil the ABA’s status as the federally recognized accreditor of U.S. law schools. The ABA’s accreditation council will discuss the DEI rule‘s repeal when it meets later this month, its chair Daniel Thies said in a statement, adding that the council makes the “ultimate decision” on law school accreditation standards. Through a spokesperson, ABA President Barbara Howard declined to comment on Tuesday’s vote.
The ABA’s requirement that schools demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions, and student programming emerged as a flashpoint soon after Trump returned to the White House and made the elimination of DEI in government, the private sector and higher education a priority.
Trump signed an executive order in April 2025 directing U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to assess whether to suspend or terminate the ABA as the government’s official law school accreditor, citing its “unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements,” as part of an executive order focused on reforming higher education accreditation. After several failed attempts to revise the DEI rule, which was already suspended, the council in May voted to eliminate it altogether, deeming it a necessary move to preserve the ABA’s federal accreditor status and stem a tide of Republican-controlled states ending their reliance on ABA accreditation in lawyer admissions. Many legal educators countered that the rule is necessary and that the ABA should not give in to pressure. Texas, Florida, and Alabama have each moved to sideline the ABA in their lawyer licensing processes in recent months, and several others are weighing similar moves. Some of those states have cited the ABA’s DEI rule as a catalyst for the change.
ACCREDITOR STATUS AT STAKE
During Tuesday’s ABA debate, supporters of repealing the rule highlighted that the vote comes as the U.S. Department of Education is conducting its review of the ABA’s accreditation function – which occurs every five years – with a decision due later this year. If the agency revokes the ABA’s status, law students and schools would face disruptions and uncertainty over financial student aid and bar admissions, which are largely tied to ABA accreditation, council representatives argued.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the Tuesday votes would impact its ABA review. In a separate vote on Tuesday, the ABA’s policy making body approved a faster process for changing the law school accreditation rules that would give the accreditation council more independence from the larger ABA. The ABA, a voluntary lawyer group with about 150,000 dues-paying members, was derided by a White House spokesperson in March 2025 as a “snooty” organization of “leftist lawyers,” after the ABA condemned rhetorical attacks on judges by administration officials. The ABA has also sued the administration over canceled domestic violence grant funding and Trump’s executive orders targeting individual law firms.
