{"id":149090,"date":"2026-04-17T14:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T22:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/17\/law-professors-argue-abandoning-the-diversity-rule-will-hurt-the-abas-reputation\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T22:26:14","slug":"law-professors-argue-abandoning-the-diversity-rule-will-hurt-the-abas-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/17\/law-professors-argue-abandoning-the-diversity-rule-will-hurt-the-abas-reputation\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Professors Argue Abandoning The Diversity Rule Will Hurt The ABA\u2019s Reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Bar Association represents itself as an organization committed to setting the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation<\/a>. They aspire to do this by promoting a quality legal education to people who want to pursue it. It isn\u2019t a perfect system \u2014 securing funding to learn what you need to learn is the lion share of the battle, but the ABA does its part by assuring that law schools do a good enough job of teaching their students what they need to know to pass the bar and practice. This is all very duh and obvious until you try dealing with the root inequalities that product disparities in access to education and the profession. One of the ways that the ABA has tried to mitigate racial discrimination from keeping lawyers out of the profession was to require that schools make a good effort to incorporate historically disenfranchised folks in to the fold. But there\u2019s a lot of money and influence dedicated to being angrier at corrective measures than the skewing processes that produce disparity, kind of like how Sotomayor had to apologize for her comments about Kavanaugh green lighting racial profiling before he was ever pushed to apologize for his actual opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ABA has been pussyfooting about its commitment to diversity for a year now, and could finally vote to end the diversity accreditation requirement as early as May 15th. Doing so wouldn\u2019t do much in itself \u2014 there\u2019s been a moratorium on the provision having any real effect for a while now \u2014 but it would signal a turn in the organization\u2019s commitment to \u201cthe legal and ethical foundation [of] the American nation. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

Hundreds of law professors, deans, students, lawyers and bar associations are urging the American Bar Association not to eliminate its longstanding diversity and inclusion requirement for law schools, which has come under fire amid the Trump administration\u2019s widespread \u200bcampaign against DEI.<\/p>\n

The arm of the ABA that oversees U.S. law schools received 47 written comments from individuals \u200cand groups asking it to retain or strengthen the law school diversity standard and two comments in support of repealing the rule during a 30-day public comment period that ended on Monday.
\u2026
Eliminating \u2060the rule \u201cwill be rightly viewed as capitulating to a rightwing movement hostile to civil rights and the rule of law,\u201d a \u200bnational organization of law professors called the Critical Legal Collective wrote in one of the public comments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s the short and long of it. There have been attempts to re-frame the motivation for closing the racial umbrella<\/a> on other grounds. One of the more interesting pieces of spaghetti thrown against the wall was that the diversity requirement was an antitrust violation<\/a>, but if and when the ABA abandons its commitment to diversity, some think tanker at the Heritage Foundation is going to fire up the grill, cook bland food and order Chick-Fil-A so the group doesn\u2019t have to eat their shameful cooking in celebration.<\/p>\n

If pressures from the administration or moneyed right wing interests were all it took for the ABA to change its tune, how long until the next domino falls? Will they stop paying lip service to the importance of the rule of law<\/a> just like they\u2019ve given up on the importance of increased access to the profession? They can hem and haw about how difficult their decisions are, but they won\u2019t have the excuse of saying that they didn\u2019t know the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n

Law Professors Defend ABA\u2019s Law School Diversity Rule Ahead Of Elimination Vote<\/a> [Reuters<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Earlier: ABA President Says They Aren\u2019t \u2018Retreating\u2019 From Diversity Promises. Does He Know What The ABA Has Been Up To?<\/a><\/p>\n

ABA Strikes Back At Trump, Condemning His Attacks On Lawyers And The Rule Of Law<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Law Professors Argue Abandoning The Diversity Rule Will Hurt The ABA\u2019s Reputation<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The American Bar Association represents itself as an organization committed to setting the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation<\/a>. They aspire to do this by promoting a quality legal education to people who want to pursue it. It isn\u2019t a perfect system \u2014 securing funding to learn what you need to learn is the lion share of the battle, but the ABA does its part by assuring that law schools do a good enough job of teaching their students what they need to know to pass the bar and practice. This is all very duh and obvious until you try dealing with the root inequalities that product disparities in access to education and the profession. One of the ways that the ABA has tried to mitigate racial discrimination from keeping lawyers out of the profession was to require that schools make a good effort to incorporate historically disenfranchised folks in to the fold. But there\u2019s a lot of money and influence dedicated to being angrier at corrective measures than the skewing processes that produce disparity, kind of like how Sotomayor had to apologize for her comments about Kavanaugh green lighting racial profiling before he was ever pushed to apologize for his actual opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ABA has been pussyfooting about its commitment to diversity for a year now, and could finally vote to end the diversity accreditation requirement as early as May 15th. Doing so wouldn\u2019t do much in itself \u2014 there\u2019s been a moratorium on the provision having any real effect for a while now \u2014 but it would signal a turn in the organization\u2019s commitment to \u201cthe legal and ethical foundation [of] the American nation. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

Hundreds of law professors, deans, students, lawyers and bar associations are urging the American Bar Association not to eliminate its longstanding diversity and inclusion requirement for law schools, which has come under fire amid the Trump administration\u2019s widespread \u200bcampaign against DEI.<\/p>\n

The arm of the ABA that oversees U.S. law schools received 47 written comments from individuals \u200cand groups asking it to retain or strengthen the law school diversity standard and two comments in support of repealing the rule during a 30-day public comment period that ended on Monday.
\u2026
Eliminating \u2060the rule \u201cwill be rightly viewed as capitulating to a rightwing movement hostile to civil rights and the rule of law,\u201d a \u200bnational organization of law professors called the Critical Legal Collective wrote in one of the public comments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s the short and long of it. There have been attempts to re-frame the motivation for closing the racial umbrella<\/a> on other grounds. One of the more interesting pieces of spaghetti thrown against the wall was that the diversity requirement was an antitrust violation<\/a>, but if and when the ABA abandons its commitment to diversity, some think tanker at the Heritage Foundation is going to fire up the grill, cook bland food and order Chick-Fil-A so the group doesn\u2019t have to eat their shameful cooking in celebration.<\/p>\n

If pressures from the administration or moneyed right wing interests were all it took for the ABA to change its tune, how long until the next domino falls? Will they stop paying lip service to the importance of the rule of law<\/a> just like they\u2019ve given up on the importance of increased access to the profession? They can hem and haw about how difficult their decisions are, but they won\u2019t have the excuse of saying that they didn\u2019t know the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n

Law Professors Defend ABA\u2019s Law School Diversity Rule Ahead Of Elimination Vote<\/a> [Reuters<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Earlier: ABA President Says They Aren\u2019t \u2018Retreating\u2019 From Diversity Promises. Does He Know What The ABA Has Been Up To?<\/a><\/p>\n

ABA Strikes Back At Trump, Condemning His Attacks On Lawyers And The Rule Of Law<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Bar Association represents itself as an organization committed to setting the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation. They aspire to do this by promoting a quality legal education to people who want to pursue it. It isn\u2019t a perfect system \u2014 securing funding to learn what you need to learn is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Chris-Williams-2025-jmm9i2.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}