The Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) is the largest national organization of law professors. CLEA was founded more than 30 years ago to advocate for excellence in legal education and the legal profession. A key part of our mission is to “pursue and promote justice and diversity as core values of the legal profession.”
CLEA strongly opposes the current proposal to repeal Standard 206. Removing this Standard would signal a retreat from the Council’s commitment to equal access, meaningful inclusion, and training lawyers to serve an increasingly diverse society. It would also weaken the independent, principle-driven accreditation process amid external pressures that threaten the independence of the profession and the rule of law.
CLEA includes diversity into our core mission because we recognize that diversity in legal education is essential to the profession’s legitimacy and effectiveness. A diverse faculty enhances legal education and connects each law school’s work to the broader community. Prioritizing diversity among faculty also ensures that legal education is accessible and welcoming to students from various backgrounds. This, in turn, leads to a profession that welcomes diverse lawyers who improve the quality of legal services for diverse populations and builds public trust in legal institutions. As an organization of clinicians, each day our members work closely with law students and can testify firsthand to the importance that diversity serves in legal education, from preparing practice-ready, creative, and ethical practitioners to ensuring access to legal services by underserved communities.
CLEA shares and supports the Council's goals of promoting access to justice, ensuring public confidence in the legal system, and preparing lawyers to serve a pluralistic society governed by the rule of law. The Council’s recent statement of Core Principles and Values of Accreditation recognizes and links the rule of law to “participation in the profession by students, graduates and teachers from all backgrounds and ideologies.” Standard 206 explicitly aligns legal education with these principles.[1] As outlined by the CLEA Committee for Faculty Equity and Inclusion, “[i]ncreasing the diversity of law faculty is a core component in moving towards equity in the profession.” An inclusive faculty brings a breadth in “academic perspectives, scholarship, teaching styles, and life experiences” and “meaningful
dialogue about the possibilities and limits of law and justice.”[2] Standard 206’s requirement for affirmative efforts to increase diversity acknowledges that these outcomes demand deliberation and ongoing commitment.
We recognize that the proposal to repeal Standard 206 is not happening in a vacuum: it reflects a broader context of increasing external pressure on institutions of higher education and professional regulation. The ABA’s role as an accrediting agency has been targeted by both the federal government and several states, and the reason is clear—the ABA and this Council are among the most prominent voices of our profession. Attacking the Council’s visible and sustained commitment to diversity within our profession is a strategic move to weaken the profession itself and its capacity to uphold the rule of law and protect the role of lawyers in doing so. This is exactly why the Council must stand firm, even in these difficult times.
Accreditation standards should be guided by professional judgment, evidence, and the enduring values of the legal profession—not by transient political pressures or demands that undermine the rule of law. The Council, as a group of lawyers and as the accreditor for legal education, is uniquely positioned to resist undemocratic intrusions. The independence of the Council and the peer-led site review process are not mere procedural formalities; they are essential structural components. Without a neutral process, accreditation risks becoming a tool for external agendas rather than an authentic measure of independent professional standards. Repealing Standard 206 in response to these pressures would signal that the core commitments of the profession can be relaxed or abandoned when politically inconvenient. This undermines the rule of law, which depends on stability, principles, and resistance to arbitrary interference.
The consequences of repealing Standard 206 would be immediate and far-reaching, removing one of the few requirements that law schools confront structural barriers to entering the profession. Our profession remains one of the least diverse in the nation and removing Standard 206 would help further the disconnect between the makeup of the legal profession and the nation we serve, perpetuating underrepresentation of students and communities that have long been excluded from legal education. The profession would likely become less representative and less able to serve the public's needs, which would further damage the credibility of legal education. At a time when trust in institutions is fragile, abandoning a firm commitment to inclusion would weaken confidence in the integrity of the profession.
Standard 206 affirms that the legal profession must be open, inclusive, and accountable. It embodies a commitment built over decades to expand access to legal education and make the profession more reflective of the society it serves. To repeal it now, in response to outside pressures, is inconsistent with our profession’s values. Instead of repealing Standard 206, the Council should retain it and provide leadership and guidance to law schools about lawfully continuing their pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. As outlined by other commentors such as the Critical Legal Collective, schools can undertake these efforts within the bounds of the law. Indeed, CLEA’s guidelines for Best Practices for Hiring and
Retention of Diverse Clinical Faculty are designed to assist schools in identifying approaches suitable for their own contexts when considering compliance with Standard 206. This is a time not to retreat but rather to loudly reaffirm what our profession stands for and its commitment to the needs of a diverse society.
The rule of law depends on legal institutions that follow fundamental principles even in the face of serious external pressure. CLEA urges the Council to reaffirm its independence, its dedication to the rule of law, and its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as essential parts of legal education and the legal profession.