ABA ends diversity requirements for governing board seats

By Karen Sloan

Aug 12 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association will no longer set aside five seats on its Board of Governors for women, racial minorities and other underrepresented groups under a change approved Tuesday by the ABA's policymaking body.

Those seats will now be open to candidates who are committed to “advancing the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” regardless of their demographic backgrounds, the ABA's House of Delegates said.

The change comes as the ABA, which is the largest voluntary lawyer organization in the United States, faces mounting scrutiny of its diversity and inclusion efforts during President Donald Trump's second term. An ABA spokesperson declined to comment on the change Tuesday morning.

The new criteria for the five diversity seats were among a series of organizational changes the House of Delegates considered on Monday and Tuesday during the ABA's annual meeting in Toronto.

The House of Delegates rejected several proposed changes that would shrink its own size and reduce the size of the Board of Governors — which oversees management of the ABA — from 43 to 32 members. That failed proposal would have reduced the number of diversity board members from the current five to three.

The committee that developed the package of changes said a smaller house and board would help the ABA become more nimble and efficient and reflect the organization's declining membership.

Paid and free ABA membership fell to 227,000 in 2024 from nearly 400,000 in 2015 — a decline of about 43% that an ABA spokesperson said is partly attributable to the elimination of some free and low-cost membership categories.

Previously, the five diversity board seats were only available to lawyers who are "racially or ethnically diverse, a woman, or self-identify either as LGBTQ+ or as having a disability."

Candidates for the diversity seats will now be evaluated based on their “involvement in groups or initiatives, lived experience, professional work, or obstacles overcome and resilience developed.”

The ABA committee’s proposal to change the diversity requirements did not cite political factors, but the organization has faced mounting pressure from the Trump administration over its diversity and inclusion efforts. Advocates for the revised diversity criteria told the house that the change could help the ABA avoid unnecessary litigation.

Trump in April threatened to revoke the ABA's status as the federal government's designated accreditor of law schools due to its requirement that law schools demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions and programming, which he said is illegal. The ABA has since put that rule on hold through August 31, 2026.

A coalition of conservative legal groups in February asked the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate several of the ABA’s diversity hiring programs, claiming they discriminate by giving priority to minority applicants and other underrepresented groups.

Read more:

American Bar Association considers ending diversity requirements for board seats

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