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ABA Rejects Proposal to Toughen Accreditation

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February 7, 2017

The American Bar Association House of Delegates on Monday rejected a proposal to require all law schools it accredits to have 75 percent of their students who sit for bar exams pass them within two years of graduation. The measure will now be returned to a committee for further review -- and could come back at a later time for consideration again. The ABA has been under pressure, with a worsening post-law school employment market and high levels of student debt, to assure that more law school graduates can find employment. The measure was questioned by many law deans from California, where bar passage rates have dropped, and from advocates for law schools that serve large minority populations. Here is a letter from law deans opposing the measure.

The measure was rejected on a voice vote that an ABA announcement called "overwhelmingly opposed."

Scott Jaschik

Scott Jaschik, Editor, is one of the three founders of Inside Higher Ed. With Doug Lederman, he leads the editorial operations of Inside Higher Ed, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. Scott is a leading voice on higher education issues, quoted regularly in publications nationwide, and publishing articles on colleges in publications such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Salon, and elsewhere. He has been a judge or screener for the National Magazine Awards, the Online Journalism Awards, the Folio Editorial Excellence Awards, and the Education Writers Association Awards. Scott served as a mentor in the community college fellowship program of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, of Teachers College, Columbia University. He is a member of the board of the Education Writers Association. From 1999-2003, Scott was editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Scott grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and graduated from Cornell University in 1985. He lives in Washington.