Texas Squashes Left-Wing American Bar Association’s Monopoly On Law School AccreditationBy: Shawn Fleetwood
January 07, 2026
Texas officially terminated the left-wing American Bar Association’s (ABA) oversight of its law schools on Tuesday, making it the first state in the nation to do so.In a two-page order, the Texas Supreme Court approved amendments it proposed in late September 2025, which effectively declared “that the ABA should no longer have the final say on whether a law school’s graduates are eligible to sit for the Texas bar exam and become licensed to practice law in Texas.” As noted by local media, the bar exam is “a requirement to becoming a licensed lawyer in each state.”
“[T]he Court advised that it intends to provide stability, certainty, and flexibility to currently approved law schools by guaranteeing ongoing approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA,” the court’s Tuesday order reads.
According to local media, “The change means law school graduates who want to practice in Texas are no longer required to attend an ABA-accredited school,” and the authority “to approve those law schools now rests solely with the state’s highest civil court.” As of now, law schools currently “on Texas’s list of approved schools need only ensure compliance” with ABA standards noted by the court to “maintain ongoing approval by the Court,” according to the order.
Tuesday’s developments represent a major step in dismantling the ideological stranglehold the ABA has been allowed to maintain over America’s law schools and the legal profession.As The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann previously reported, the ABA regularly “advocates for and engages in unlawful racial and sexual discrimination and is a highly partisan actor on behalf of the Democrat Party and other anti-Constitution activists.” The organization, she noted, “deeply affects the U.S. lawyer pipeline and licensing system, accrediting law schools, rating judges, and weaponizing lawyer discipline.”
“Its rabid leftism means the ABA systematically ratchets the entire U.S. legal system against the U.S. Constitution,” Pullmann added.
Since returning to office, the Trump administration has put the ABA on notice for engaging in the “unlawful racial and sexual discrimination” described by Pullmann.
https://thefederalist.com/2026/01/07/texas-squashes-left-wing-american-bar-associations-monopoly-on-law-school-accreditation/
