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Domino effect in Rumsfeld v. FAIR
Monday's Supreme Court ruling that colleges and universities receiving federal funding must allow military recruiters on campus was not only a triumph for the associative rights of students and a necessary corrective for activist administrators; it was also an implicit challenge to the American Association of Law Schools and the American Bar Association, which require law schools to comply with their own activist agendas if they wish to be accredited. Law schools have argued that they must bar military recruiters in order to comply with their accrediting organization's non-discrimination policies. Now the policies of law school accrediting organizations are themselves coming under fire.
The ABA has recently announced a new "Equal Opportunity and Diversity" criterion that would compel all accredited law schools to produce annual reports documenting the measures they are taking to diversify their faculties, student bodies, and staffs. The new policy couldl attempt to override the laws in states--among them California and Washington--that have outlawed the use of racial preferences as an admissions criteria. The ABA denies that it is attempting to impose a racial quota system on law schools, but critics of the new policy, which will come up for formal approval in August, worry about the slippery ideological slope the ABA is creating. Yesterday, the Center for Equal Opportunity and the National Association of Scholars sent letters to the U.S. Department of Education asking that the ABA's power to accredit law schools be revoked unless it drops the new diversity standard. The Center for Individual Rights was also expected to send a letter.
The positions of these groups are unequivocal, and, in the wake of the wake up call that is Rumsfeld v. FAIR, ought to give the ABA pause. Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, issued a statement saying that "It is outrageous that the ABA should use its accreditation authority to force law schools to engage in politically correct and illegal discrimination," adding that "It would be even more outrageous were the Department of Education to allow the ABA to extort such illegal and unfair behavior." Stephen Balch and Gail Heriot of the National Association of Scholars voices similar thoughts in their letter:
No law school that is up for its seven-year review will fail to recognize the implicit message: A law school must do what's necessary to obtain the undefined, unspecified diversity 'results' that will satisfy the ABA or face the disastrous possibility that its accreditation will be revoked or held up. If that means employing racial, ethnic, or gender preferences that the law-school faculty believes are academically ill-advised, then so be it. Anything is better than de-accreditation. ... It is difficult to avoid the interpretation that the ABA is attempting to pressure law schools into breaking the law. If so, it is highly irresponsible. Doing so under color of authority of the Department of Education is simply appalling.
Strong words -- but necessary ones. The ABA is not likely to be able to lay these very sharply framed concerns to rest without abandoning its diversity requirement entirely. It's also not likely to willingly abandon that requirement simply because a few organizations it regards as political opponents object to it. It will be up to the Department of Education to set the precedent here. This will be one to watch.
Posted by acta online on March 09, 2006 at March 9, 2006 02:47 PM
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