ABA Legal Ed council will decide Sept. 8 whether DEI standard is repealed; will it matter?

ABA Legal Ed council will decide Sept. 8 whether DEI standard is repealed; will it matter? The final call on whether the council for the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will repeal a contentious diversity, equity and inclusion standard for law schools will not take place until its next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 8. The decision was announced Friday at the council’s quarterly meeting in Chicago. Hours earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that it had obtained an advance copy of a memorandum from the U.S. Department of Education recommending that the council be stripped of its sole national accreditation powers, citing a lack of independence. The report came the same week that the Department of Education proposed a rule forcing accreditors to scrap DEI policies. Under ABA rules, the council can consider repealing the controversial Standard 206, which has been on hold since February 2025 and requires that law schools “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion by providing full opportunities for the study of law and entry into the profession by members of underrepresented groups” and “having a faculty and staff that are diverse with respect to gender, race and ethnicity.” At the ABA Annual Conference earlier this month, the ABA House of Delegates approved a resolution underscoring the council’s independence by allowing the council to send any proposed rule changes to the House for feedback only once instead of twice. While that vote essentially gave the council free rein to decide the fate of Standard 206—the new requirement mandates a period of 30 days to consider the House’s guidance. The House meeting was Aug. 4—only 17 days ago. Next steps The council is expected to vote on the standard in an upcoming special session hosted virtually Sept. 8. That same month, it faces a five-year review of its accreditation status by the Education Department. The next step is bringing Daniel Thies, the immediate past chair of the council, before the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, or the NACIQI, in September. On Friday morning, the council received the Education Department’s final staff analysis and recommendation to deny the council accreditor powers, Melissa Hart, the chair of the council, said at the meeting. “To set some context, this is one step in the regular recognition process. We look forward to the opportunity to address any misconceptions and clarify the record at our upcoming hearing,” Hart said. Law schools need accreditation by a nationally recognized body for their students to receive financial aid, and most states require bar candidates to have graduated from an ABA-accredited school. The council is an independent arm of the ABA, the target of criticism from the Trump administration on a host of issues. The Education Department’s report, according to the Wall Street Journal’s story, asserts that the council isn’t sufficiently independent of the profession to ensure that it focuses on education quality. But much of the conflict stems from the council’s standard on DEI. On Wednesday, the Department of Education proposed a new rule that would make it easier for new accreditors to be approved and force accreditors to scrap DEI policies, replacing them with policies that value “intellectual diversity.” Under the new rule, all higher education accreditors would not be allowed to require affirmative action-type policies, which the department characterized as discriminatory. The council’s DEI standard came under fire after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to strike down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Some states have eliminated DEI requirements. In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Linda McMahon, the secretary of the Education Department, to assess whether to suspend or terminate the council as the government’s official law school accreditor, citing its “unlawful ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ requirements” as part of an executive order focused on reforming higher education accreditation. To prevent law schools from choosing between following the court’s ruling or meeting the council’s accreditation standards, the council voted in February 2025 to initially suspend Standard 206. It remains suspended until Aug. 31, 2027. But changes to three other standards related to the main DEI standard were approved and will move to the House of Delegates in February. Changes to Standard 205 would replace the lists of demographic categories with reference to federal, state and local laws prohibiting discrimination. Standard 207’s revision would state that a law school’s policies for assessing and handling reasonable accommodation requests made by qualified people with disabilities must be consistent with applicable law. Standard 303(c)—which aims to train students to communicate effectively with all colleagues, adversaries, clients, judges and others—was voted to be repealed. Meanwhile, the ABA council faces other sources of pressure as its exclusive accreditor status is changing. Since early this year, the state supreme courts of the Republican-leaning states of Alabama, Texas and Florida made moves to break ties with the council. Other state supreme courts, including Ohio, currently are reevaluating ABA accreditation. Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.