Law School Accreditor to Delay Enforcement of DEI Rule

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the American Bar Association’s accreditation arm is poised to suspend its diversity and inclusion standard through August 2026, extending a pause first issued in February that was set to expire this August, Reuters reported. 

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, which accredits all law schools in the country, adopted the standard years before Republican lawmakers—including President Donald Trump—launched their crusade against the terms “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion.” In 2023, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions practices in higher education, the law school accreditor began the process of revising the standard, striking out the words “diversity” and “inclusion” and replacing them with “access.” 

Even then, a coalition of Republican attorneys general attacked the proposal, claiming it violated the Supreme Court’s ruling—a claim independent experts and Democratic attorneys general refuted. The ABA continued to revise the proposed changes to the standards through 2024, attempting to strike a balance between upholding the affirmative action ban while also emphasizing the importance of including groups that have been historically excluded from the legal profession, including women, racial minorities and people from low-income households.   

However, the political pressure against the standard has only intensified since Trump took office in January and promptly issued an executive order to eliminate DEI-related initiatives at higher education institutions.

Weeks later, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to the chair of the ABA’s accrediting arm, warning that it could lose its status as the federally recognized accreditor of U.S. law schools—a position it has held since 1952—if it did not abandon plans to revise the DEI standard and repeal it immediately. The rule, Bondi said, has subjected law faculties and students to “unlawful race and sex discrimination under the guise of ‘diversity’ mandates.” 

In April, Trump issued an executive order focused on “reforming” higher education accreditors and directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to assess if the ABA’s “unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements” warrant its suspension or termination as the government’s official law school accreditor.

The ABA’s accrediting arm will vote Friday on whether to finalize the suspension of the diversity standard.