ABA keeps law school diversity rule on hold into 2026 amid Trump crackdown

By Karen Sloan

May 9 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association on Friday extended the suspension of its law school diversity and inclusion requirement amid increasing pressure from the Trump administration to cancel the rule.

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar unanimously voted to extend the suspension of the rule — which requires law schools to demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions and programming — through August 31, 2026.

The council in a statement cited the shifting higher education landscape and litigation over President Donald Trump's executive orders as reasons to further suspend the diversity rule.

"In light of these developments, the council determined that extraordinary circumstances exist in which compliance with [the diversity standard] would constitute extreme hardship for multiple law schools, and that the standard should not be presently enforced," the statement reads.

The council initially suspended that rule in February after Trump issued a series of executive orders meant to curtail diversity efforts in the government, the private sector and in higher education.

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 rule and scrap a planned revision of the standard, which she said discriminated based on sex and race.

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.

Attorneys general from 21 Republican-controlled states have also warned the ABA that its law school diversity rule is unlawful.

State high courts in Texas and Florida have both said in recent weeks that they are reviewing their requirement that aspiring lawyers graduate from an ABA-accredited law school in order to sit for their bar exams, with the Florida justices citing the ABA’s former law school diversity and inclusion rule.

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