The American Bar Association has revised the criteria for its Judicial Clerkship Program to eliminate references to minority students and “communities of color” after a conservative legal group alleged that the ABA was illegally discriminating by using racial quotas.
The program, founded 24 years ago to help boost the number of minority judicial clerks, previously required participating law schools to send between four and six students “from underrepresented communities of color,” while judges were asked to try to hire at least two “minority judicial law clerks” over five years. Now, law schools are “encouraged to select a diverse group of students,” and judges have no hiring parameters.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a complaint against the ABA with the U.S. Department of Education in May and threatened further legal action, though it never filed a lawsuit. Skylar Croy, an attorney with the institute, said on Tuesday it’s not clear when the ABA modified the criteria for the Judicial Clerkship Program.
The ABA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
“All law students deserve an equal shot to compete for prestigious post-law school employment,” Croy said in a prepared statement. “No one should assess them based on the color of their skin—especially not the ABA and especially not judges.”
Diversity programs have increasingly come under attack ever since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 banned affirmative action in college and university admissions.
A different group founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, who brought the Supreme Court affirmative action challenge, earlier this year sued law firms Winston & Strawn, Perkins Coie, and Morrison & Foerster over their diversity fellowship programs. Blum later dropped all three lawsuits after the firms altered their application criteria.
The State Bar of Wisconsin modified the parameters of a diversity program for law students after the institute sued it in December.
Read more:
Discrimination lawsuit prompts Wisconsin Bar to modify diversity program
Affirmative action opponent drops case over Winston & Strawn's diversity fellowship
