Against Renewing the ABA as Law School Accreditor
This week, an obscure federal body called the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity—quite a mouthful, so call it NACIQI—held a hearing on whether to recommend to the Department of Education to renew recognition of the American Bar Association as law-school accreditor. (I’ve written in the past about the ABA’s role in the illiberal takeover of legal education and why it doesn’t deserve its monopoly over law-school accreditation, including an entire chapter in my last book Lawless.) NACIQI ultimately deadlocked 8-8 on the question, which means competing motions to (1) continue recognition for 12 months while requiring corrective action and (2) deny renewal both failed—so now the secretary of education will have to decide without any official recommendation. I was supposed to testify, but the hearing went off the rails and couldn’t stick to the timing of its planned agenda, so I had to catch a plane and was in the air for the entirety of the period they entertained third-party comments. But here’s the testimony I was expecting to give. —IS
