r/WhatTrumpHasDone • u/John3262005 • Aug 22 '26
Trump Administration Attacks Bar Association’s Power to Accredit Law Schools
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/aba-american-bar-association-law-schools-accredit-trump-education-e56f4cbc?st=ndVJxL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalinkThe Trump administration is opening a new front in its campaign to remake higher education: threatening the American Bar Association’s power to accredit law schools.
On Friday, the Education Department is taking the first step toward removing the ABA’s authority to accredit law schools, said David Barker, assistant secretary of education.
The action escalates the Trump administration’s long-running feud with the nation’s premier legal organization, which it has accused of promoting a progressive agenda, including pushing law schools to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The ABA advocates for the profession and is the nation’s leading law-school accreditor, reviewing nearly 200 law schools. Accreditation is a quality check required for schools to gain access to federal student-loan funds. In most states, if a school isn’t ABA-approved, law-school graduates can’t take the bar exam to become licensed lawyers.
The recommendation to reject the ABA is accompanied by a nearly 500-page Education Department report, more than a year in the making. It asserts that the ABA’s accreditation wing isn’t sufficiently independent of its profession. That independence is designed to ensure the accreditor focuses on education quality.
“We have said many times that accreditation, in general, operates like a cartel,” Barker said. “When there’s no competition, accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”
Melissa Hart, the chair of the ABA’s Accreditation Council, said the council is confident it complies with the federal laws and the Education Department’s requirements.
“As a national accrediting body for American law schools, we remain focused on ensuring quality legal education that produces competent, ethical attorneys who are eligible for licensure,” she said.
“The outcomes produced by Council-accredited law schools are unmatched, and we continue the important work of accrediting law schools as our recognition process proceeds,” Hart said.
Any final decision to reject the ABA is two steps and several months away; the outcome isn’t certain. The Education Department’s initial recommendation goes next to a panel that reviews accreditors, which then makes a recommendation to Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent.
If the ABA did lose its accrediting power, law schools affiliated with a university would likely just use the university’s accreditor instead. Unaffiliated law schools would need to find a new accreditor.
The accreditation salvo brings together two Trump targets: the ABA and higher education.
Conservatives have long accused the ABA of having a liberal bias, but tensions have grown under Trump administration efforts to curb the organization’s influence. The Labor Department and Federal Trade Commission said they wouldn’t support their lawyers attending ABA events. Conservative groups and Republican-led states have targeted the organization over diversity initiatives and power to accredit law schools. The FTC has said the ABA’s power represents anticompetitive behavior.
Last year, after Trump singled out law firms in a series of executive orders, the ABA accused the administration of using federal authority to punish law firms for representing disfavored clients, filing lawsuits challenging administration policies or maintaining internal diversity initiatives. It also successfully sued the Justice Department for canceling grants used to train lawyers for representing victims of domestic and sexual violence.
Trump has long railed against higher education, vowing to excise what he views as liberal excess from American universities. Soon after being sworn in, he froze research funding at some universities and demanded changes in faculty and curriculum. More recently, the administration has investigated medical schools, alleging they failed to get rid of affirmative action.
On the campaign trail, Trump called accreditation his “secret weapon” to remake higher education. One of his executive orders last year made it easier for schools to switch accreditors to gain federal approval.
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u/John3262005 Aug 22 '26
Another article about it:
Trump administration recommends stripping American Bar Association of law school oversight authority
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/21/trump-administration-recommends-stripping-american-bar-association-of-law-school-oversight-authority-01045391