Tennessee joins Alabama, Florida, Ohio and Texas in parting ways with the ABA.
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Tennessee opened the door to new law school accreditors while continuing to allow graduates of both state-approved and American Bar Association-accredited law schools to seek admission to the state bar.
The Supreme Court of Tennessee made the change official in a Friday filing, amending a rule that specified an “ABA-accredited law school” to a “law school accredited by an Approved Accreditor.”
Tennessee follows Alabama, Florida, Ohio and Texas in rolling back requirements that graduates taking the bar exam earn degrees from ABA-accredited law schools. All five states are led by Republicans, and GOP officials have been increasingly critical of the ABA’s diversity, equity and inclusion standards.
The ABA suspended its DEI standard in early 2025, shortly after President Donald Trump took office again. Its accreditation council also voted 10 to 6 last month to eliminate the diversity standard.
Despite backpedaling on DEI, the ABA has found itself in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. The Department of Education said in August that federal recognition for the accreditor should not be renewed and accused it of violating federal requirements in more than two dozen ways.
Last month an Education Department accreditation committee—the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity—was unable to agree on whether recognition should be renewed, despite hours of discussion and multiple rounds of voting. In the end, NACIQI members voted to make no recommendation to the Department of Education on the ABA.
(This article has been updated to clarify the details of the Supreme Court's new rule.)
