Congress to Probe ABA Over Alleged ‘Weaponization’ of DEI Policies
“Members will also explore how Congress can help permanently eliminate DEI policies within American institutions, including the legal profession and academy.”
Members of the House of Representatives are looking into whether the law school accreditation group, the American Bar Association, weaponized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to force discriminatory policies in admissions and coursework.
The House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Constitutional Abuses will hold a hearing Wednesday with ABA President Michelle Behnke to determine if the group actively pushed DEI policies at accredited schools.
In an interview with Just the News, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, outlined what the task force will be looking to uncover through its line of questioning during Wednesday’s hearing.
Gill said that the task force will “analyze how the American Bar Association (ABA) has weaponized its accreditation authority to promote DEI policies that are contrary to federal civil rights law and the negative consequences in the legal profession that result from these harmful policies.”
“Members will also explore how Congress can help permanently eliminate DEI policies within American institutions, including the legal profession and academy,” added Gill.
The ABA has been at the center of intense scrutiny for several years over admissions and curricular policies that intentionally instill political agendas into law school programs.
In 2024, the Equal Protection Project responded to a call for comment from the ABA’s new “Proposed Revision,” which reportedly would remove aspects of DEI from the group’s official policies. EPP argued that the newly proposed policies still contained language that could be interpreted as promoting DEI practices, despite using updated terminology, particularly the phrase “identities that historically have been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession.”
“But by adding the ‘including those with identities that historically have been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession’ language, the ABA seems to be using a ‘dog whistle’ to signal to law schools that race and other identities should still be used to differentiate among law students and discriminate against those whose racial and other identities have not historically been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession,” wrote EPP founder William Jacobson.
Jacobson has been lobbying the ABA to remove discriminatory language from official policies since 2022, when he called on states to “stop requiring bar applicants to graduate from an ABA-accredited school,” over the DEI policies entrenched in these institutions.
“States enabled the ABA’s near-monopoly accrediting power, which now is being abused for ideological purposes,” noted Jacobson.
“What the states gave the ABA, the states can and should take away.”
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Comments
Oh boy, Oh Boy, OH BOY!
Best thing I ever did was buy popcorn futures! This is gonna be a fun one!
I really don’t see what authority Congress has over Swedish music disputes, even if DEI is involved.
You might be conflating the ABA with ABBA.
Waterloo….. apropos don’t you think
🤣🤣 well done 😁
I.love.Gill !!!
Unfortunately I don’t think that’s possible, especially without violating the 1A. If it were possible it should have been done in the 1950s; the nits were laid then, and we’re just seeing the outbreak of lice now.
It certainly did in the past. It didn’t bother hiding it. For a while it adopted a rule that required accredited schools to engage in racial discrimination.
The only question is whether it still does so. The obvious answer is yes, but it denies it, and proving that it’s lying will be difficult.
Lawyers and other criminals, along with foreigners should not be eligible to run for political office in America.
Under the Separation of Powers, officers of the court (lawyers) should not be eligible for legislative office.
The idea that a person can’t simultaneously serve in more than one branch of government is not true. There is nothing in the constitution to prevent someone from being both a cabinet secretary and a federal judge. Nor is there anything preventing the president from also sitting in congress or on the supreme court (but not both). Other than the fact that no human being could possibly handle both jobs, and any attempt to do so would be proof of insanity.
(The presidency itself is really too much for one person to handle, and ought to be split up into two offices.)
People who hold an office under the united states, i.e. one to which they have been appointed by the president with the senate’s consent, can’t sit in Congress. That’s the only limitation. Lawyers hold no such office.
(The presidency itself is really too much for one person to handle, and ought to be
split up into two officesreduced in power until it can be handled by an average citizen.) (Along with Congress.)FIFY
Have the Dept of Education work with Congress to take away the ABA’s ability to accredit law schools. There is no reason to have the ABA as an authority on accred
Should have been done decades ago, but good luck getting it through this congress.
Breaking the monopoly would do it. Nothing says a different group couldn’t also be recognized as an alternative accreditation body. Probably easier politically to get that than an outright ban, though there’s a decent chance the Dept ED could act based on ABA refusal to commit to non discrimination. Seats in a Law School are are zero sum so to advantage person X for admission based on non academic/non merit reasons is to disadvantage persons A, B and C who didn’t get a thumb on the scales for admissions.