Trump Targets American Bar Association Accreditation Power

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Holy smokes! The Trump Administration just moved to terminate the ABA's status as a law school "accreditor." This will be one of the most meaningful changes to open doors for Americans and steer legal culture toward justice, not radical indoctrination. The American Bar Association (ABA) is a left-wing advocacy group, filing 80% of its amicus briefs for liberal arguments and 0% for conservative. It uses its monopoly on recognizing which law schools are "accredited" (get student loans) to force DEI hiring, recruitment, and inflate the cost of education.

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Trump Targets American Bar Association Accreditation Power – Something I’ve Advocated For Years
I’ve been arguing to strip the ABA of its near-monopoly accrediting power since 2022. I’m proud that I was against the ABA before it was cool to be against the ABA.

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On April 23, 2025, Donald Trump signed another series of Executive Orders, including one targeting the role of the American Bar Association Council in accrediting law schools.

The EO Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education addressed both college and professional accreditors. Here’s what it said about the ABA Council:

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (Council), which is the sole federally recognized accreditor for Juris Doctor programs, has required law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including by “commit[ting] to having a student body [and faculty] that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.” As the Attorney General has concluded and informed the Council, the discriminatory requirement blatantly violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). Though the Council subsequently suspended its enforcement while it considers proposed revisions, this standard and similar unlawful mandates must be permanently eradicated….

American students and taxpayers deserve better, and my Administration will reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price. Federal recognition will not be provided to accreditors engaging in unlawful discrimination in violation of Federal law….

[2] (b) The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American law schools that is advanced by the Council, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards. The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law.

It’s amazing how so many things we have been advocating for years, such as opposition to DEI-based discrimination, are now coming to fruition. Add the opposition to ABA accreditation to the list. We’ve been argueing against that for several years.

On February 10, 2022, I co-authored an op-ed at Real Clear Politics, ABA Forcing Wokeness on Law School , arguing for the states to take action since the Biden administration would never challenge the ABA:

Legal education is about to undergo a revolutionary change, with the American Bar Association poised to mandate race-focused study as a prerequisite to graduating from law school. It’s another instance of woke ideology being forced on the nation, and may necessitate that states revisit the ABA’s government-granted near-monopoly accrediting power.

This race-focused educational mandate is being forced on law schools through the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (ABA). Much of ABA’s power stems from the federal government. Law students must attend schools whose accreditor is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to receive federal student loans. The ABA is the only federally recognized law school accreditor….

Whether or not ABA accreditation previously ensured quality, the ABA has become partisan, using its power to promote an ideological agenda….

That may explain why ABA membership dropped from 300,000 (over 50% of the bar) in 1980 to 194,000 (14.4%) in 2017. ABA may once have been a proxy for the American legal community, but now it’s just a proxy for the left wing of the American legal community. Yet its accrediting power continues….

Whatever the reform approach, action is needed. States enabled the ABA’s near-monopoly accrediting power, which now is being abused for ideological purposes. What the states gave the ABA, the states can and should take away.

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