The Implications Of Trump's Executive Order Targeting ABA Accreditation Of Law Schools

Following up on last week's post, Trump Executive Order Targets College (And Law School) Accreditors (Including ABA), Blames DEI For Low Standards And Poor Student Outcomes:  Mike Spivey, Implications of Executive Branch Order Targeting College Accrediting Bodies, Including the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to The Bar:

What are the implications? First, the American Bar Association (ABA), and all the other accrediting bodies, will fight this for existential reasons, and the ABA is uniquely set up to do so. So I would expect we will see what has become a pattern of sorts for this administration—a pushing forward then backing a bit off that results in a compromise of sorts, ending with the ABA eliminating its currently suspended diversity standards but no schools losing accreditation and federal financial aid remaining unaltered. The hammer the White House would appear to be wielding, then, is that they could theoretically not accredit schools by taking on this authority from the ABA, and unaccredited schools would in turn not be given federal financial loan money. The diversity criteria, as noted, appear to be what the White House with its hammer is looking to continue to go after—although to steal an observation: There is patent hypocrisy in labeling DEI as discriminatory ideology but later pushing to “appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty.”

It should be noted that states can opt out of ABA accreditation, and my understanding is some Republican-leaning states have discussed this. The trade-off would be more autonomy with the possible risk of a law degree from an unaccredited law school (unlike an accredited law school) being less portable outside of your own state. ...

At the end of the day, this would appear to be all about DEI and forcing the ABA on that, which is harmful—heterogeneity of thought for lawyers is incredibly important to both schools and society. A homogenous mindset, which is more apt to occur when excluding diverse backgrounds, will not represent “We the people.” Beyond that—and I do want to point out the “that” I speak of is attacking DEI principles, which I strongly oppose—I strongly do not believe that loan funding and applications themselves will change due to this executive order.

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