My colleague John Sailer writes that, in pursuit of “diversity,” “Every day the universities wake up and break the law.” However, the American Bar Association (ABA) is giving the universities a run for their money. It’s running a Business Law Section Diversity Clerkship Program that reserves its beneficiaries to the “diverse,” defined as:
- Law student of color
- Women
- Law students with disabilities
- LGBTQ+ law students
- Students who have overcome social or economic disadvantages such as a physical disability, financial constraints, or cultural impediments to becoming a law student
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me there has to be a violation in there somewhere of Title VII, Section 1981, or one of the many other anti-discrimination laws. Besides, the ABA program excludes only non-disabled, white, cisheterosexual males. It isn’t designed to help a minority, but to disadvantage a minority of no more than 25% of the population.
The ABA’s been running wild with “diversity” initiatives. It’s committed in principle to Diversity & Inclusion, it’s got a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center, it’s imposing DEI accreditation standards on law schools, it’s bullyragging law firms to make “diversity” hires, and it only abandoned one racially discriminatory “diversity” requirement when it was sued by the state of Florida. The Business Law Section Diversity Clerkship Program is just one part of the ABA going all in to substitute race preferences for individual equality—which is to say, it is doing its best to undermine the law of the land.
This, mind you, from the nation’s foremost professional association of lawyers.
The diversity regime damages America in no end of ways. Our universities have abandoned the missions of education and the search for excellence, our diversified air traffic controllers are one near-miss away from a major air accident, our public health officials want to ration health care on DEI principles, and DEI powers censorship—above all in the search algorithms and the advertising demonetizations of the tech lords.
But the imposition of DEI on the law is the most dangerous of all. Our liberty has always depended upon our law—but how can we be free if the lawyers and judges themselves are all carefully curated to be supporters and clients of the DEI regime? The ABA’s embrace of “diversity,” of all the squalid tyrannies of the DEI regime, threatens to eliminate our future paladins of liberty from the legal profession.
The necessary riposte is to remove the ABA from its positions of power—from its federally recognized role to accredit law schools, from any state-recognized role in legal certification, and, of course, from any role in rating judges. Set aside the ABA’s self-appointed role as a political enforcer. The ABA is dedicated to defying American civil rights law. No legal association devoted to lawbreaking deserves any recognition from American policymakers or respect from the American public.
Or the ABA could voluntarily rededicate itself to liberty, individual equality, and respect for American civil rights law. But I ain’t waiting up at night.
Photo by Giuseppe Crimeni — Adobe Stock — Asset ID#: 119064342
