From Inside Higher Ed: Law schools are no longer required to demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion among students, faculty or staff, following a special meeting Tuesday where the American Bar Association’s accreditation council voted 10 to 6 to eliminate the standard. The decision is final and takes effect immediately. It does not, however, prevent law schools from continuing to prioritize diversity on campus; rather, it bars the council as a quality-assurance group from mandating that colleges do so in order to remain accredited. Other diversity-related standards, including one concerning curriculum, are still up for discussion among the council.
Known as Standard 206, the now-repealed quality metric has been a topic of debate for years. Critics argue that it violated the 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning the consideration of race in college admissions; proponents call that view an overreaching interpretation of the high court’s opinion. More recently, the Trump administration has cited the standard in an executive order as one of many alleged infringements on the regulations that define which accreditors qualify for federal recognition—a status that allows them to deem a college eligible for federal student aid and that can be key to ensuring students qualify for an attorney’s license. The Education Department officially recommended that the ABA accreditation council be stripped of its recognition in August...
Full story at: https://www.insidehighered.com/index%2ephp/news/governance/accreditation/2026/09/08/aba-accreditation-council-repeals-diversity-standard.
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