A recent letter from eight deans of Texas’ American Bar Association (ABA)-accredited law schools is urging the Texas Supreme Court to maintain the requirement that attorneys graduate from ABA-accredited institutions. However, viewed through the lens of our Founding principles—natural rights, individual liberty, and limited government—the deans’ defense of the American Bar Association’s monopoly on accreditation reveals a troubling deference to institutional authority that risks stifling both innovation and education excellence.
Our Founders argued that institutions must serve the common good by upholding standards grounded in reason and the rational order of society. The deans’ letter emphasizes the ABA’s “exhaustive” and “detailed” accreditation process, which, they assert, ensures that law schools meet rigorous educational standards. The deans note that ABA accreditation enables Texas law graduates to practice in all 50 states, with 12% of 2023 graduates working in states other than Texas. Limiting this portability, the deans argue, could harm Texas law schools’ ability to attract top students, thereby undermining their competitiveness.
However, our country’s Founding principles demand more than a knee-jerk defense of established institutions. Our Founders were deeply skeptical of authority that lacks grounding in reason or the consent of the governed. The Texas Supreme Court’s review of the ABA requirement, spurred by concerns over the ABA’s diversity mandates and “active political engagement,” reflects a legitimate exercise of sovereignty.
Such scrutiny is a necessary check on an institution that some see as having strayed far from its role as an impartial arbiter of educational quality. The ABA’s recent controversies—condemning the Trump administration’s battles with judges and law firms, and imposing diversity mandates (now paused until August 2026)—suggest a politicization that our Founders would find antithetical to the principles of meritocracy. When the ABA’s standards reflect ideological agendas rather than universal merit, they risk corrupting the rational foundation of legal education.
The deans’ letter, intent on stressing the benefits of ABA accreditation, fails entirely to engage these concerns. This omission is striking. By defending the ABA without addressing its alleged overreach, the deans exhibit an institutional orthodoxy that the Founders would critique as complacent. Standards must be justified not by tradition alone but by their alignment with reason and justice. If the ABA’s accreditation process has become entangled with political objectives, as Florida’s Supreme Court and the Trump administration have suggested, the deans’ blanket endorsement merely sidesteps the need for reform.
Our Founders rightly insisted on a balance between tradition and innovation. The ABA’s role in Texas since 1983 provides stability, which can be valuable. Yet the Founders’ belief in reason and progress would make them receptive to alternatives, such as those proposed by University of Texas law dean Robert Chesney. Chesney’s suggestion to recognize other accreditors or grant exceptions to the ABA requirement aligns with the Founders’ view that competition fosters excellence while preventing the concentration of power. A monopolistic accreditor, unchecked by alternatives, risks becoming an unaccountable arbiter of legal education, a prospect the Founders would find incompatible with the principles of a free society.
Moreover, the Founders would question whether the ABA’s standards truly serve students and the public. The deans argue that accreditation ensures consumer access to data on schools and outcomes, but our Founders might ask whether this data is sufficient or whether the ABA’s process inflates costs, as critics of its bureaucratic requirements have claimed. If alternative accreditors could maintain high standards while reducing barriers to entry, the Founders would likely support exploring such options to expand access to legal education without sacrificing quality.
The Texas Supreme Court’s review offers an opportunity to reaffirm the Founders’ vision of individual liberty. Rather than clinging to the ABA’s monopoly, the court should consider a framework that preserves rigorous standards while encouraging innovation. Recognizing alternative accreditors, as Chesney suggests, could foster a dynamic legal education system that serves both students and the public. Such a system must be grounded in reason, merit, and the common good—not in blind loyalty to an institution whose actions have raised legitimate concerns.
In sum, while the deans’ defense of ABA accreditation highlights otherwise-valid concerns about standards and mobility, it falls far short of the critical scrutiny students and taxpayers deserve. The Texas Supreme Court should allow alternatives to the ABA’s monopoly, introducing the competition and innovation that are essential to ensuring that the legal profession continues to serve the common good.