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Racial justice organizers in the legal profession are gearing up for an American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates meeting this August that will decide whether the ABA will officially drop its commitment to promoting diversity in law schools — and reversing the longstanding exclusion of women and people of color from the legal profession.

“We’re trying to put pressure on the House of Delegates vote,” says Kara Sheli Wallis, an associate professor of law at the City University of New York and board member of the Critical Legal Collective, which has been organizing in defense of Standard 206, which requires law schools to demonstrate “a commitment to diversity and inclusion” by having faculty, staff, and student bodies that are “diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”

On May 15, a council of the American Bar Association voted to recommend that the association repeal Standard 206. But for that proposed repeal to be implemented, it must be approved in early August by the annual conference of the ABA House of Delegates.

“There’s still a chance for 206 to survive and say, no we’re not going to backslide to the 1950s South,” Wallis told Truthout.

The fight over a law school accreditation standard might sound like a technical and relatively inconsequential debate, but the repeal of Standard 206 could significantly reverse decades of slow progress toward making the legal profession a more inclusive institution. Fewer lawyers who are not white men would in turn mean worse legal representation for women and people of color, as well as fewer paths to upward mobility.

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Out of 50 comments received by the American Bar Association Standards Committee, all but two opposed repealing the diversity standard, but the committee still pressed forward with the repeal. One cautiously worded sentence in the committee statement points to the reason:

Recent developments have led the Standards Committee to conclude that this national system of accreditation — and the Council’s role as an accreditor — would be imminently threatened if Standard 206 is not repealed.

Recent developments have led the Standards Committee to conclude that this national system of accreditation — and the Council’s role as an accreditor — would be imminently threatened if Standard 206 is not repealed.

Simply put, the American Bar Association is afraid that it will be stripped of its accreditation authority if it doesn’t drop its diversity standard. This is not an idle concern. As the biggest accreditor of law schools in the U.S., the ABA has many standards that law schools must meet or work toward in order to gain or retain the accreditation that enables students to be eligible for everything from federal loans to being able to being accepted by state bar associations, which enables them to legally practice.

The American Bar Association is afraid that it will be stripped of its accreditation authority if it doesn’t drop its diversity standard.

The American Bar Association is afraid that it will be stripped of its accreditation authority if it doesn’t drop its diversity standard.

But many in the law school community argue that........

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