From Day 1, the Trump administration has proudly placed diversity, equity and inclusion programs in its crosshairs. Last week, it turned its attention to the American Bar Association and, by extension, virtually every would-be lawyer in the country.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded the American Bar Association repeal its requirement that law schools actively promote diversity efforts with respect to faculty and students. The Trump administration claims that a recent Supreme Court decision compels the ABA to eliminate efforts to increase access to legal education, but that argument misreads the case.
The ABA realized that it needed to grapple not just with new Supreme Court case law, but a changing legal landscape.
The ABA, founded in 1878, is the nation’s largest voluntary association of lawyers and law students. It sets academic standards for law schools, creates model ethical codes for the legal profession and determines which law schools obtain accreditation. Many states require that applicants demonstrate they graduated from an ABA-accredited law school before they take the bar examination.
The ABA’s diversity and inclusion standard for schools came under scrutiny after a 2023 Supreme Court decision declared that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions decisions. The high court concluded that using race as a factor in admissions decisions violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause (in the case of public universities) and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (in the case of private colleges and universities), by discriminating against applicants on the basis of race.
Eventually, more than a year after that decision, the ABA sought to update its diversity accreditation standard, known as Standard 206. One proposed revision, circulated last August, would require schools to provide access to “all persons including those with identities that historically have been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession” but eliminate references to specific categories such as race and ethnicity. A second revision would restore the references to those two categories. But as of Trump’s inauguration, the ABA had not yet settled on a final version of Standard 206.
After Trump’s second term began, the Department of Education ordered academic institutions to either eliminate DEI policies or lose their federal funding. The ABA realized it needed to grapple with not just new Supreme Court case law, but also a changing legal landscape with respect to Trump’s executive actions. The ABA tried to buy itself more time by suspending the enforcement of Standard 206 until Aug. 31, 2025. But Bondi’s letter directs the ABA to drop Standard 206 entirely or risk losing its ability to act as the sole accreditor for U.S. law schools. In doing so, the attorney general cuts off the ABA’s ability to promote access to a legal education while still complying with all applicable cases and orders.
The court’s decision can be fairly read as telling law schools that race cannot be considered as a stand-alone factor in admissions.
Again, the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision held that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions decisions. But nowhere requires that law schools give up efforts to broaden the pool of law students and faculty to include people who have historically been excluded from law schools, such as people who are economically disadvantaged. The court’s decision can be fairly read as telling law schools that race cannot be considered as a stand-alone factor in admissions decisions. No more, and no less.
In the majority opinion in that case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” For example, Roberts said, students could write application essays about overcoming racial discrimination, as long as that was “tied to that student’s courage and determination.”
Simply put, there is a way for the ABA to draft an accreditation standard that promotes its goals and adheres to the law. It could seek to broaden its pool of students and faculty through efforts to ensure socioeconomic diversity. There is no doubt that maintaining its goal of increasing access to a legal education, while complying with the Supreme Court’s decision and applicable executive orders, will require the ABA to carefully draft a new standard. Given these competing questions, the organization understandably asked for a short timeout.
But Bondi’s letter is tantamount to ending the game entirely. There is no legal reason that the Trump administration should strong-arm the ABA into short-circuiting this important process.