The Department of Justice (DOJ) has ordered every U.S. law school to halt diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) admissions practices, with Attorney General Pam Bondi stating, “We have come too far as a nation to allow the abominable practice of discrimination on the basis of one’s race to continue.”
In a memorandum to all American law school deans and admissions officers, Bondi flamed the American Bar Association’s (ABA) DEI standards and emphasized President Donald Trump’s January executive order to restore ‘merit-based opportunity’:
As law school administrators, you are all no doubt aware that Standard 206 of the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools explicitly requires schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including a commitment to having a student body and faculty “that are diverse with respect to gender, race and ethnicity.”
The prior administration allowed “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination” to spread “throughout every facet of academia” while “[p]roponents of these discriminatory practices” attempted to justify them “under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’).” But President Trump has been clear: “[D]angerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion'” violate the civil rights laws of this country and will no longer be tolerated.
The ABA voted last month to suspend the enforcement of Standard 206 until August 31 while they revise their standards in order to “integrate legal developments and forthcoming guidance from the Department of Education.”
The role the Department of Education could play in the ABA’s rules is now unclear after Trump signed an executive order last week calling for the education secretary to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
Digging deeper into the law school DEI policy, Bondi stated that she has already informed the bar association that the only “path forward” is the “complete repeal of Standard 206” because it “at a minimum, encourage[s] unlawful discrimination.”
“In response, the ABA has assured the Department of Justice that it ‘will not require a law school to violate the law to comply with its accreditation standards’ and acknowledges that its status as a federally recognized accrediting agency ‘is a privilege,’ not a right,” the attorney general continued, before arguing that the ABA’s message “is a mixed one”:
The ABA also says that it “has not” required law schools to violate the law in the past. That is absolutely false: Standard 206 has been on the books for years, and it requires blatantly illegal discrimination. The plain text of the standard acknowledges this by threatening that “[t]he requirement of a constitutional provision or statute that purports to prohibit consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment decisions is not a justification for a school’s non-compliance with Standard 206.”
Moreover, despite promising to amend Standard 206, the ABA has reaffirmed its “commitment” to preferencing “those who have been historically excluded from the legal profession”—in other words, the ABA has reaffirmed its commitment to race-based preferencing under the banner of DEI.
While the DOJ monitors the ABA’s actions and enforcement of Standard 206, Bondi stated that she wrote to law school administrators to “make clear” that the anti-DEI directive applies to them too — even if schools “voluntarily” use race-based admissions practices:
The Department of Justice is closely monitoring the ABA’s actions as it reconsiders Standard 206 in May. In the meantime, I am writing to make clear that the same legal principles that prohibit the ABA from requiring law schools to comply with diversity mandates also prohibit law schools from doing so voluntarily.
There is no longer any question about the illegality of race-based preferences in law school admissions and employment decisions. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, the question was “whether a university may make admissions decisions that turn on an applicant’s race”—the answer was a resounding “no.” Race-based affirmative action proceeds on the “pernicious stereotype” “that there is an inherent benefit in race qua race—in race for race’s sake.” Such programs “treat individuals as the product of their race, evaluating their thoughts and efforts—their very worth as citizens—according to a criterion barred to the Government by history and the Constitution.” That is equally true of university employment decisions. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” And “[i]f an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.”
De facto racial preferences established “through application essays or other means” are also unlawful. The Supreme Court gave us this example: While it may be permissible for universities to consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life,” any preference for that applicant “must be tied to that student’s courage and determination”; it may not serve as a proxy for preference “on the basis of race.” I urge similar caution regarding any and all DEI initiatives. If diversity is defined in terms of race and sex outcomes, then universities cannot lawfully pursue diversity by any means.
I join the President and the Supreme Court in “forcefully reject[ing] the notion that government actors may intentionally allocate preference to those who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin.”
A DOJ official said that Bondi’s memorandum is “a key example of the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to get harmful DEI practices out of American institutions and ensure that our legal system is built on a foundation of merit.”
After Bondi informed the ABA in a February 28 letter that the only “path forward” was to repeal the DEI mandate, the state of Florida appointed a working group to reconsider bar exam requirements.
“We hope that other states follow suit,” the DOJ official said.
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