Trump Administration Strips ABA’s Law School Accreditation
The Trump administration escalated its assault on independent oversight by targeting the American Bar Association’s accreditation authority over law schools. The Education Department announced Friday it is moving to strip the ABA of its power to accredit law schools, marking a significant expansion of Trump’s efforts to dismantle institutional guardrails that have historically provided independent assessment of judicial and legal credentials.
This action directly follows the administration’s earlier move to cut the ABA’s access to judicial nominees after the organization rated some Trump nominees as unqualified. The repeated attacks on the ABA reflect Trump’s longstanding hostility toward the organization’s rating system, which during his first term identified numerous judicial candidates as lacking adequate qualifications. By removing the ABA’s accreditation authority, Trump removes a mechanism that independently evaluates legal education quality and professional competence.
The assault on the ABA parallels Trump’s broader campaign against accreditation bodies. Trump’s executive order directly attacks the college accreditation process, consolidating his control over higher education by targeting federal funding allocation mechanisms. These coordinated attacks aim to replace independent institutional evaluation with executive control over which organizations can certify educational and professional standards.
The administration’s dismantling of the ABA’s role reflects Trump’s pattern of eliminating independent oversight bodies that resist his agenda. By stripping accreditation power from the nation’s premier legal organization, the administration removes a significant obstacle to appointing ideologically aligned judges and attorneys who might otherwise face credibility questions from independent evaluators.