The American Bar Association is aiming to keep references to “race and ethnicity” in its diversity rules for law schools, following pushback from legal educators who said a proposed revision of the rule that struck those terms could hobble efforts to recruit diverse students and faculty.
The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar on Friday is slated to consider a second revised version of what is currently called the Diversity and Inclusion standard after an earlier version received widespread criticism for going “too far” beyond the parameters of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision barring the consideration of race in college admissions, according to a Nov. 1 memo from the committee that drafted the revision.
The rule at issue involves how law schools must demonstrate commitment to diversity through recruitment, admissions and programming. The ABA is designated as the national accreditor of law schools by the U.S. Department of Education and it maintains a series of standards that all schools must follow.
The ABA began reviewing the existing diversity and inclusion standard last year to ensure it complied with the court’s ruling. After the organization circulated its first revision, many commenters felt “the revisions would hurt diversity and send a negative message about the importance of diversity,” reads the memo explaining the latest proposal.
The back-and-forth over the ABA’s diversity standard, which would be renamed the Access to Legal Education and the Profession standard under both proposals, illustrates the complexities that colleges, admissions offices, and accrediting bodies are navigating following the court’s decision.
The Supreme Court effectively prohibited affirmative action policies long used to raise the number of underrepresented minority students on campuses, but it specified that essays and personal statements in which candidates discuss their race or background are acceptable.
The ABA’s current diversity standard requires law schools provide “full opportunities” for “racial and ethnic minorities” and have a diverse student body “with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”
The first revision, which was circulated for public comment by the council in August, said schools must provide access to “all persons including those with identities that historically have been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession” without spelling out any specific categories, including race and ethnicity.
A coalition of 44 law deans said in a September letter that the first proposal rolled back diversity requirements beyond what is required by the Supreme Court.
The new proposal requires schools to demonstrate through “concrete action” a commitment to including groups that have historically excluded from the legal profession “due to race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status, Native American tribal citizenship, and/or socioeconomic background.”
If the ABA council approves the latest version of the rule later this week, it will go out for a second round of public comment.
Read more:
ABA looks to strip 'race and ethnicity' from law school diversity rules
Cutting 'race and ethnicity' from ABA's law school diversity rules goes too far, critics say
