Education Department moves to remove Bar Association's authority to accredit law schools

The Education Department on Friday began the process to remove the American Bar Association's authority to accredit law schools, David Barker, assistant secretary of education, said. 

The Trump administration has accused the legal organization of promoting progressive agendas, including pushing law schools to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The ABA is the nation's leading law-school accreditor, reviewing nearly 200 law schools. The accreditation process is a quality check that schools are required to obtain in order to access federal student-loan funds. In most states, graduates of schools without ABA approval can't take the bar exam to become licensed lawyers. 

The Education Department produced a 500-page report that concluded the ABA's accreditation wing isn't sufficiently independent of its profession. Barker said that accreditation operates like a cartel, and when there's no competition, "accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”

Melissa Hart, the chair of the ABA’s Accreditation Council, said that the council complies with federal laws and the Education Department’s requirements.

Any final decision on the ABA's authority to accredit schools is two steps and several months away, and the revokation of that authority is not certain.