Busting the ABA’s Accreditation Monopoly
The Trump Administration wants to reverse the leftward march of the nation’s universities, and that includes taking on the ancient problem of accreditation. The American Bar Association (ABA) reviews about 200 law schools, and in many states its stamp of approval is required for graduates to take the bar exam. Now the Trump Administration is threatening the ABA’s privilege.
The ABA had told schools to show “concrete” efforts toward diversity and inclusion in their student bodies and faculties. Though it anticipated in 2022 that the Justices might change the legality, according to the Education Department’s report, it “continued into the 2024–2025 review cycle to provide training and evaluate law schools” based on the old standard, before it was finally suspended.
That sounds abstract, so recall that the Justice Department this month accused Duke Law School of illegally discriminating by race in its incoming classes from 2023-25. Duke has said it is reviewing the allegations and is committed to following the law. According to the Justice Department, white and Asian applicants denied admission had higher median LSAT scores than black students who were accepted.
As the Trump Administration digs into more admissions data to root out race preferences by proxy, might some schools defend themselves by saying they were obligated to satisfy the accreditors? If the ABA’s unhurried approach to Students for Fair Admissions gave cover to further illegal race discrimination, it’s a problem.
The Education Department also suggests that the accreditation shop isn’t sufficiently separate and independent from the ABA, as regulations require. That’s a problem because the bar association is a professional guild for practicing attorneys, whose interests aren’t identical to those of law students or the public. Despite this, the ABA has enjoyed an accreditation monopoly, which state policies have further entrenched, though some of those are now being reconsidered or repealed.
