The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative pubic interest law firm, commissioned research that demonstrated how the American Bar Association pressures law schools to adopt race- and sex-based hiring and admissions preferences using the threat of withholding its accreditation. The ABA oversees U.S. law school accreditation—this should stop—and abuses its power and woke biases to dictate law school discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender in violation of Title VI and the U.S. Constitution. The report is titled,“Unconstitutional Accreditation Pressures Force Law Schools to Discriminate against Faculty and Students.”

The results of the study, based on Freedom of Information Act requests sent to 50 top law schools, confirms that the ABA uses its quasi-governmental authority to push institutions toward unlawful discrimination. Of the 45 schools that responded to PLF’s survey, twenty had received warnings from accreditors that they were failing to meet the ABA’s diversity standards by having “too few” minority or female faculty, and not having a DEI effort ongoing on campus,

School administrators are usually weenies, so most schools in this position capitulate to the ABA’s illegal demands. For example, the ABA investigated George Mason University School of Law in 2000 for supposed violations of its diversity standards. Eventually the school shifted its admissions criteria to ensure that male, white and Asian students were kept out of law school entering classes to the extent that the ABA mandated. In 2006, newly established Charleston School of Law had to agree to appoint a director of diversity before the ABA would grant it accreditation.

Concludes the Foundation, “Accreditation standards should help ensure that all students receive adequate preparation to embark on their legal careers rather than imposing arbitrary demographic requirements on schools. Every aspiring attorney, regardless of their race or sex, deserves an equal opportunity to pursue their dream. It’s time for law school accreditors to stop pressuring law schools into obtaining arbitrary demographic results and start embodying our nation’s principles of equality and opportunity.”

It adds, “Promoting equal opportunity doesn’t require mandating demographic quotas—it requires removing barriers so that all applicants can compete on a level and fair playing field.”

DEI and compensatory discrimination is buried deep and wide into our culture like a hoard of ticks. It isn’t going to be eradicated without sustained attention and substantial penalties to its practitioners. In this instance, pulling accrediting power from the ABA is a wonderful place to start.