The Texas Office of the Attorney General opened an investigation into the American Bar Association, an organization of lawyers and law students that provides accreditation to law schools, including UT\u2019s School of Law, Sept. 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to a news release from the Texas Attorney General\u2019s office, the investigation will examine whether the ABA\u2019s accreditation requirements have \u201cunlawfully restricted competition\u201d for the accreditation of law schools or increased the cost of attending law school. Christopher Roberts, the executive director of marketing and communications at UT Law, wrote in an email that UT Law does not anticipate changes in its accreditation status.<\/p>\n
In the news release, the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office alleges the ABA used its authority over law schools to inflate faculty salaries, create expensive accreditation requirements and exclude schools who challenge the ABA\u2019s views. The Office also wrote that the ABA imposed \u201cunconstitutional racial and gender preference requirements\u201d on ABA accredited law school admission and hiring processes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be competition and a fair playing field when it comes to law school accreditation, or else we risk inflated costs for students, unfair restrictions, and illegal discriminatory practices,\u201d said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the news release. \u201cMy office will investigate whether the law school accreditation process has been used to unlawfully limit competition and burden students and institutions. No organization should be permitted to use its position of influence to violate our antitrust laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Daily Texan reached out to an ABA spokesperson and a spokesperson for the Accreditation Council for Legal Education responded and wrote that the Council will work with the Attorney General\u2019s Office to respond to their inquiry. The Council operates separately from the ABA.<\/p>\n
The Texas investigation comes after several national conflicts with the ABA. In April 2025, the ABA filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice for limiting the ABA\u2019s funding<\/a>. This September, a panel that advises the U.S. Department of Education on accreditation did not reach a decision on whether the ABA should retain federal recognition for accreditation.<\/p>\n Previously, those interested in practicing law in Texas would have to attend an ABA-accredited law school to take the Texas bar exam. The bar exam is a test used to determine whether someone can legally practice law. In January, the Texas Supreme Court ended the requirement<\/a> to attend an ABA-accredited school before taking the bar exam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Office of the Attorney General opened an investigation into the American Bar Association, an organization of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-463552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}