Law Schools

Several AGs Push The ABA's Accreditation Criteria To Comply With SFFA v. Harvard

TL;DR: Change the language or a bunch of law schools will get sued, k thx.

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Diversity (1)Since the Supreme Court transformed the 14th Amendment into a bludgeoning tool for affirmative action programs with SFFA v. Harvard, programs intent on fostering diversity have a bigger worry on their hands: Fostering getting their asses sued. In a letter to the American Bar Association, 21 attorneys general got that message across. And while they were polite about it, the letter argued that Standard 206’s race-based criteria was unconstitutional and doesn’t hold any punches:

The American Bar Association—an institution that publicly touts its commitment to setting the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation and celebrates its work advancing respect for the rule of law—tells law schools that if they follow the controlling law, they are not worthy of educating future lawyers. I cannot fathom how this anarchic language made its way into the standards for law-school accreditation. Its inclusion betrays a serious failure within the ABA. ABA standards do not carry get-out-of-federal-law-free status, nor does the ABA enjoy immunity from following the laws binding it as an accreditor.

By requiring explicitly illegal consideration of race, the ABA is working hard to burden every law school in America with punitive civil-rights litigation. Further, if American legal culture internalizes the ABA’s determination to ignore unwanted legal obligations, our profession, and our country, may never recover.

The foreboding suggestion that our country “may never recover” if the ABA doesn’t conform to the Harvard decision is a bit over the top, but otherwise the letter makes sense. It is hard to square the Court’s ham-fisted “any mention of race is a racism” approach in Harvard with Standard 206. The letter is also thorough enough to note, as expected, that any guideline that attempts to force racial preferences into student admissions or faculty hiring either outright or by  proxy would be a constitutional violation.

Letter To Council of the American Bar Association [TN.Gov]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@preprod-atl.staging.breakingmedia.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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