The ABA's Loss of Federal Accreditation Authority Is Justified by Its Politicized, Legally Unjustifiable Conduct
Source: Eric Wessan. "American Bar Association Keeps Proving It's A Leftist Activist Group." September 11, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that the American Bar Association should lose its special government-backed power to approve law schools because it has repeatedly acted like a political organization rather than a neutral rule-follower—ignoring a Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action for nearly two years, hiding evidence of this defiance, failing to justify its own standards, and even claiming a constitutional amendment exists when courts say it doesn't. Because of this pattern of politically motivated and legally unjustified behavior, the Department of Education should revoke the ABA's accreditation authority, as its staff has recommended.
Conclusion
The Department of Education should follow its staff's recommendation to strip the American Bar Association of its federal recognition as a law school accreditor because the ABA has operated as a politically motivated body rather than a neutral, legally grounded accreditor.
Premises
- The ABA continued enforcing its diversity mandate (Standard 206) for 20 months after the Supreme Court's 2023 SFFA v. Harvard ruling declared race-conscious decision-making unconstitutional, despite its own training materials acknowledging the standard needed to change.
- When the ABA finally suspended Standard 206, it instructed staff to redact embarrassing questions from site evaluations and withhold complaints from site teams, suggesting an effort to cover up wrongdoing rather than genuinely reform.
- The ABA cannot justify or produce the studies behind its flagship bar-passage benchmark (Standard 316's 75% threshold), despite claiming such studies exist.
- The ABA has misused the federal regulatory term 'adverse action,' failed to codify promised rule revisions, and has not demonstrated genuine independence of its accreditation arm from the ABA proper.
- The ABA's House of Delegates declared the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution despite this position being rejected by the Office of Legal Counsel under both parties, the National Archivist, and every court to consider the question—demonstrating a willingness to prioritize political goals over accurate legal analysis.
- The ABA argued to the Supreme Court that a law permitting indefinite detention of illegal alien felons is unconstitutional, reflecting a pattern of partisan legal positioning.
- Precedent from Texas and Florida ending mandatory ABA accreditation shows that legal markets can function without the ABA's monopoly, undermining claims that stripping recognition would destabilize legal education.
Assumptions
- An accreditor's legitimacy depends on strict political neutrality and consistent adherence to Supreme Court rulings.
- Delayed compliance and internal cover-up behavior are indicative of bad faith rather than bureaucratic slowness or genuine deliberation.
- Taking a legal position that courts have rejected (e.g., on the ERA) reflects a broader institutional untrustworthiness rather than a defensible advocacy stance.
- Federal accreditation is properly understood as a conditional privilege rather than an entrenched right, justifying revocation for noncompliance.
- The Department of Education staff report's characterizations and findings are accurate and complete.
- Loss of ABA monopoly accreditation would not meaningfully harm legal education quality or access, based on the Texas/Florida examples.