Under Trump pressure, ABA poised to suspend law school DEI rule into 2026

By Karen Sloan

May 6 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association is set to extend the suspension of its law school diversity and inclusion rule through August 2026 as the organization faces mounting pressure from the Trump administration to abandon it diversity efforts.

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar on Friday will consider a recommendation to further defer enforcement of its longstanding diversity rule, which was first suspended in February after President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders meant to curtail DEI efforts in the government, the private sector and in higher education.

The higher education landscape “continues to change rapidly,” said Jenn Rosato Perea, the ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education. “These changes create extreme hardship for law schools seeking to comply with the law and with the accreditation standards,” she said on Tuesday, adding that the ABA will not evaluate law schools’ compliance with the diversity rule while it remains suspended.

The ABA has faced added pressure since it suspended the diversity rule, which involves law schools' demonstration of their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions and programming. Attorney General Pam Bondi in March warned the ABA that its role as the federally recognized accreditor of U.S. law schools — which it has held since 1952 — could be revoked if it did not repeal the DEI rule and scrap a planned revision of the standard, which she said are unlawful race and sex discrimination.

Trump in April signed an executive order directing 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.

The high courts in Texas and Florida have both said in recent weeks that they are reviewing their ABA-graduation requirement, with the Florida justices citing the ABA’s former law school diversity and inclusion rule.

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