'Like a cartel': Trump wields 'secret weapon' in latest culture war front

The Trump administration is opening a new front in its effort to reshape higher education.

The Education Department is moving to strip the American Bar Association of its authority to accredit law schools nationwide, escalating a long-running feud between the administration and the ABA, which the White House has accused of pushing a progressive agenda, including diversity, equity and inclusion policies at law schools, reported the Wall Street Journal.

The ABA accredits nearly 200 law schools and serves as the profession's gatekeeper, because accreditation is required for schools to access federal student-loan funding, and in most states, graduates of non-accredited law schools cannot sit for the bar exam. Losing that authority would be a significant blow to the organization's influence over legal education.

The Education Department's push is backed by a nearly 500-page report, more than a year in development, arguing the ABA's accrediting arm lacks sufficient independence from the legal profession it oversees.

"We have said many times that accreditation, in general, operates like a cartel," said David Barker, assistant secretary of education. "When there's no competition, accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do."

Melissa Hart, chair of the ABA's Accreditation Council, pushed back, saying the council is confident it meets federal requirements and that "the outcomes produced by council-accredited law schools are unmatched."

The recommendation must first go to a panel that reviews accreditors, which will then make its own recommendation to Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent. If the ABA ultimately loses its authority, university-affiliated law schools would likely shift to their parent institution's accreditor, while standalone law schools would need to find a new one entirely.

President Donald Trump's administration has already discouraged federal lawyers from attending ABA events, frozen university research funding and investigated medical schools over affirmative action policies.

On the campaign trail, Trump once called accreditation his "secret weapon" for remaking American higher education, and an executive order last year already made it easier for schools to switch accreditors.