American Bar Association votes to eliminate DEI rule for law schools
By Karen Sloan
May 15, 2026 - 3:04 PM EDT - Updated May 15, 2026
LINK - https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/american-bar-association-votes-eliminate-dei-rule-law-schools-2026-05-15/
ARCHIVE - https://web.archive.org/web/20260517110341/https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/american-bar-association-votes-eliminate-dei-rule-law-schools-2026-05-15/
May 15 (Reuters) - A longstanding diversity and inclusion requirement for U.S. law schools is teetering amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration and Republican states.
The American Bar Association council that oversees law school accreditation voted on Friday to eliminate a rule that requires law schools to demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions, and student programming.
The rule has been suspended since February 2025, after Republican President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
"Even though I personally agree with [the diversity and inclusion standard] and what it tries to achieve, I think it's appropriate as an accrediting body that we eliminate that standard so we don't inhibit the diversity of ideas out there in various types of legal education environments," said David Brennen, a council member and a former dean of the University of Kentucky College of Law.
The change would not become final until the ABA's House of Delegates begins to consider it as early as August and then debates revisions.That approval process could push the diversity rule's elimination to sometime in 2027.
The ABA's accreditation rules for law schools have required diversity and inclusion for decades, providing a key tool for advocates seeking to bolster the number of women and minorities in the U.S. legal profession — which remains more heavily white and male than the nation's population.
But the ABA's focus on DEI has placed the organization squarely in the crosshairs of the second Trump administration.
Trump in April 2025 signed an executive order directing U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to assess whether to suspend or terminate the ABA 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.
Texas, Florida and Alabama have each moved to sideline the ABA in their lawyer licensing processes in recent months, and several other Republican-controlled states are weighing similar moves.
The ABA received a raft of public comments asking it to retain or strengthen the diversity and inclusion rule — mostly from legal educators — but a key committee recommended it be eliminated in order to retain the organization's status as the federally recognized accreditor of law schools.
The "national system of accreditation—and the Council's role as an accreditor—would be imminently threatened if the diversity and inclusion rule is not repealed," according to an ABA Standards Committee memo, opens new tab backing the elimination of the diversity rule.
The ABA's Council of Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar also voted on Friday to gather public comments on eliminating a rule adopted in 2022 that requires law schools to educate students about bias, racism, and cross-cultural competency, as well as a proposal to drastically pare back, opens new tab its non-discrimination rule for students and faculty.
It could reach a decision on those changes as early as August.
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Clearly [THEY] are in a panic.
PREDICTION - There will be NO VOTE on eliminating the DEI rule taken in August because the American Bar Association will be closed by August, after which it will be regarded as one the most destructive criminal organizations that ever existed in American history.
It's good to see these Communist cocksuckers panic while the walls are closing in on [THEM]. . . .
kek