Trump Hammers ABA Law School Influence. The End Is Nigh.
By Josh Blackman
When the history of the American Bar Association’s downfall is written, one theme will recur: it didn’t have to end this way. By the 1960s, nearly half of the lawyers in the United States were members of the ABA. Congress, Presidents, and the courts consulted the ABA closely as a trusted advisor on all legal matters. Yet, tragically, that trust was squandered when the ABA was captured by the left. Instead of serving as a trade group for lawyers, the ABA became just another left-wing advocacy group. As membership declined, the ABA could have arrested its progressive lurch, but instead accelerated in the wrong direction. The group took liberal positions on abortion, affirmative action, national security, and other controversial issues that had nothing to do with the legal profession. The ABA stopped being relevant decades ago. All that is left is a hollow husk of a once-great entity. Now, the Trump Administration is poised to strike the mortal blow by eliminating the ABA Council's power over law school accreditation. Things didn’t have to end this way, but the ABA brought this endgame onto itself.
I played a small role in trying to stop the ABA’s collapse, which I have not previously discussed, but now wish to share. In early 2023, the Editor of the ABA Journal invited me to write a regular column in the flagship publication. At first I was skeptical. I had long been hostile to the ABA, which had become a left-wing organization that exercised sweeping regulatory authority over law schools. I agreed to write for the Journal under one condition: my columns would be critical of the ABA and progressive orthodoxies. My goal was to upset the status quo. The editor, to his credit, agreed.
My first installment, published in April 2023, was titled “The ABA needs ideological diversity to ensure its future.” I offered a dire warning if the ABA did not moderate its positions: “A future Republican administration may deem the ABA a poor steward of its accreditation power, and the Department of Education can seek other options.”
My second installment, published the following month, was titled “Law schools face an inflection point with DEI.” Again, I offered another dire warning about the ABA’s DEI mandates: “Institutions must choose whether to allow DEI to erect their own fiefdoms that will tower over a school’s academic mission.” With the benefit of hindsight, my predictions would prove accurate.
My hope, perhaps naive, was that these articles would serve as a wake-up call and jolt the fading organization into action. Indeed, there were early glimmers of optimism. I was invited to join a new ABA caucus devoted to building bridges with lawyers across the ideological spectrum. This experience taught me that a few careful lawyers within the ABA still wanted to reform the group from within. We put together what we thought was a simple resolution for the ABA House of Delegates: in addition to promoting diversity based on race, sex, gender identity, and other characteristics, the ABA would also support viewpoint diversity. Who could oppose a wider range of viewpoints? And wouldn’t opposition to that proposal be evidence of the ABA’s failings?
Needless to say, the resolution faced a wall of opposition from every corner of the ABA. DEI apparatchiks warned viewpoint diversity was a cover for oppression. The elites insisted that some views simply weren’t worth protecting. And those with their heads in the sand insisted that the ABA was already committed to viewpoint diversity, so there was no need for the resolution. After some backlash, the caucus couldn’t even find an entity to sponsor the resolution before the House of Delegates. Alas, this proposal was doomed. Against my better judgment, I kept trying to work within the system.
I spoke on a panel at the 2024 ABA midyear meeting in Louisville about viewpoint diversity. I again warned that the ABA risked losing its accreditation power if it kept “pushing forward DEI requirements.” I also urged the organization to “do less” and “focus more on the core” of the legal profession. It’s one thing to make these points in a column. It is a very different experience to speak these truths in a crowded ballroom filled with ABA acolytes. Things did not go well.
One of my co-panelists responded by charging me with making arguments based on white supremacy. The last time such an accusation was made against me was when students at CUNY Law protested me. I expected better from a civil rights attorney who was participating in a panel about viewpoint diversity. But perhaps the connection is clear enough. The progressive worldview dismisses any contrary views as white supremacy. Is it any wonder the ABA has drifted so far from salience?
I soon resigned from the caucus, having concluded that my presence likely impeded making meaningful change. My colleagues in the caucus continued their diligent work, and actually managed to pass a helpful resolution in the House of Delegates, but it was too little, too late.
The end for the ABA is near. But the organization remains clueless. The ABA House of Delegates recently voted to retain the DEI rules for law school, even as the Council on Legal Education faced an existential threat from the Trump Administration. The Council has scheduled an emergency meeting to eliminate the DEI rule, despite the House of Delegate's intransigence. Again, too little, too late.
Soon enough, the Department of Education will formally remove the ABA from any role in shaping the direction of law schools. Texas and other states have already removed the ABA from the accreditation process. Recent reports suggest that the budget of the bloated and sclerotic organization needs to be cut. As members continue to flee, the ABA bureaucracy will have to be trimmed. Some components that serve an actual public purpose will survive, perhaps in another form. Other ABA entities that exist for the sake of existing will wither away. The once great ABA is a thing of the past.
During my presentation at the 2024 ABA meeting, I warned that the organization risked obsolescence by fixating on perceived societal oppression and not the legal profession. A lawyer in the audience stood up and said, “I would be very proud to be the last person standing in an organization that cares deeply about and tries to address oppression.” She may get her wish.
Josh Blackman, a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook, holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston and is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
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