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‘What the ABA is effectively communicating to students and school administrators is that race is the most important thing,’ legal analyst says
Dozens of law schools across America still require diversity, equity and inclusion coursework or programming to graduate, according to a new report from a conservative education watchdog group.
The nonprofit Defending Education also flagged how the American Bar Association still requires some sort of DEI accreditation requirement despite repealing a DEI mandate last year.
Of nearly 200 law schools accredited by the ABA, “62 appear to still require students to complete DEI-related coursework or programming in order to graduate,” according to the report, published April 16.
“In addition, 72 law schools appear to maintain DEI offices—or rebranded versions of them—that remain in operation.”
Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Defending Education, said “law school is a time for real intellectual development, not infusing race-based programs into these legal paradigms.”
“They are instead ensuring race-based perspectives in legal education at the cost of excellence in legal education,” she told The College Fix in a telephone interview.
The ABA has a near-monopoly on law school accreditation.
Although the association rescinded an accreditation criteria in 2025 that mandated DEI for law schools, what remains is Standard 303, which tasks law schools with providing “education to law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism” at the start of their program and at least once again before graduation, Defending Education noted in its report.
The requirement may be satisfied by orientation sessions, lectures, courses, or “other educational experiences,” the report noted.
“Rather than focus on the knowledge the country’s future lawyers need to succeed in the 21st century, the ABA insists that students’ finite time and treasure be frittered away on race, bias, and culture issues,” Perry said.
The University of California at Berkeley, for example, requires students complete two courses focused “on how laws and legal institutions shape and are shaped by racism and other forms of systemic inequality,” according to the report’s findings.
Defending Education also flagged how UC Irvine School of Law has a race and indigeneity requirement, Rutgers Law School includes a “racial equity requirement,” and St. John’s University law school states its mission is to “sustain and foster an equitable, inclusive, anti-racist community of diverse experiences and perspectives, emphasizing respect for the rights and dignity of every person.”
Iowa’s Drake University Law School’s “Collaborative Culture” page is also highlighted in the report. The school hosts a diversity week and diversity initiatives, among other efforts.
Perry told The Fix that “what the ABA is effectively communicating to students and school administrators is that race is the most important thing; they have determined that they will require these curricular inclusions so these students are taught the victor and victim ideology.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial on April 16 argued the ABA’s near chokehold on accreditation must be reformed.
“When a single accreditor controls access to the legal profession, the standards and expectations become entrenched, along with political bias. Law schools have incentive to align themselves with what they think the ABA wants,” the editorial states.
The Journal called for “alternatives,” noting the U.S. Education Department’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity “will review the ABA’s federal recognition this summer, and the bar association should be concerned.”
Writing for Reason, Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, offered a different approach.
He suggested law schools fulfill the ABA’s Standard 303 by offering classes that critique DEI.
“I have long suspected that one way to comply with DEI standards is to criticize DEI,” Blackman wrote. “… Will any law schools take up this mantle? I don’t know. …But this position at least gives the ABA some wiggle room in future fights with the Department of Education.”
MORE: Florida, Texas sever ties with ABA law school accreditor amid DEI concerns
