Florida weighs breaking with American Bar Association over DEI rule

By Karen Sloan

March 12 (Reuters) - Citing an American Bar Association diversity mandate for law schools, Florida is considering dropping a requirement that students graduate from an ABA-accredited school in order to sit for the state’s bar exam.

The Supreme Court of Florida, comprised entirely of Republican-appointed justices, established a workgroup on Wednesday to study the state's ABA requirement for admission and propose possible alternatives, with a report due by Sept. 30.

The ABA's current diversity and inclusion rule requires that law schools provide “full opportunities” for “racial and ethnic minorities” and have a diverse student body “with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.” The ABA last month suspended enforcement of the current diversity rule and delayed approving a proposed revision in order to incorporate forthcoming guidance from the U.S. Department of Education.

Florida is the first state to publicly weigh breaking with the ABA over its law school diversity and inclusion rule —which has garnered criticism from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Republicans who say its discriminatory.

“Reasonable questions have arisen about the ABA’s accreditation standards on racial and ethnic diversity in law schools and about the ABA’s active political engagement,” the court said in an announcement of the workgroup, adding that some have also questioned whether the ABA’s law school standards drive up the cost of legal education and stifle innovation.

Florida has 12 ABA-accredited law schools and the third-largest number of bar examinees in the country, with more than 4,000 aspiring lawyers taking its exam each year. The ABA has been the state’s sole recognized law school accreditor since 1992.

The ABA did not immediately provide comment Wednesday, nor did the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, which is part of the state’s court system and handles bar admission. The Florida Bar declined to comment, and a Florida Supreme Court spokesperson referred back to the court’s announcement and administrative order establishing the work group.

The ABA has come under attack from the Trump administration in recent weeks. A White House spokesperson last week dismissed the organization as a “board of snooty, leftist lawyers,” after the ABA condemned what it called “inappropriate” attacks on judges by Trump administration officials.

Bondi threatened to revoke the ABA’s status as the government-designated accreditor of U.S. law schools in her Feb. 28 letter calling for the elimination of its law school diversity and inclusion standard.

Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court has been eliminating legal diversity and inclusion initiatives since at least 2021. That includes ordering the Florida Bar to stop funding diversity programs and eliminating diversity training from eligible continuing legal education topics for attorneys.

Read more:

US Attorney General presses ABA to drop law school DEI rule or risk losing accreditor status

ABA ramps up defense of judges as White House dismisses 'snooty' lawyers