Republican AGs warn American Bar Association that revised DEI standard constitutes racial discrimination

A coalition of 21 Republican state attorney generals has sent a letter to the American Bar Association (ABA) in opposition to its revised “Diversity and Inclusion” standard.

On Monday, the coalition, which includes Ken Paxton of Texas and Ashley Moody of Florida, warned that the standard violates the U.S. Constitution and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The attorney generals also condemned the ABA’s latest revised standard for appearing to “perpetuate unlawful racial discrimination.”

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”The proposed revisions, much like the current Standard, impermissibly impose race-based admissions and hiring requirements as a condition of accreditation while leaving law schools in the dark about how to reconcile the Standard’s dictates with their legal obligations,” the letter states. ”We thus once again urge the Council to bring Standard 206 in line with federal law and with the ABA’s purported commitment to set the legal and ethical foundation for the nation’s attorneys and educational institutions.”

In November, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar decided to reimplement DEI-based (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) language into Standard 206.

“We wanted to make it clear that we were not seeking to abandon the values of diversity and inclusion,” council member Carla Pratt said at the time. “So we have added the words diversity and inclusion back.”

According to the coalition’s letter against the revisions, the new standard ”all but compels law schools to consider race in both the admissions and employment contexts,” and ”expressly and impermissibly calls on schools to calibrate classes and faculty based on race.”

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”Whatever the intent behind Standard 206, it cannot lawfully be implemented in its current or revised forms,” the letter concludes. ”The Supreme Court has made clear that well-intentioned racial discrimination is just as illegal as invidious discrimination.”

”We thus urge the Council to revise Standard 206 to unambiguously reflect federal law’s prohibition of race-based admissions and hiring,” the attorney generals write. ”Doing so will provide much-needed clarity for the law-school administrators who work hard to train future members of our profession.”