Tuesday, June 27, 2006

NESLReference: ABA antitrust consent decree violations

From NESLReference:

ABA antitrust consent decree violations

The Department of Justice petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hold the American Bar Association in civil contempt for violations of a 1996 consent decree related to their accreditation procedures for law schools. DOJ press release here.

The ABA has stipulated to the violations and agreed to pay a fine of $185,000.

One of the six violations listed in the press release was the ABA's failure to 'provide proposed changes to accreditation standards to the United States for review before such changes are acted on by the ABA's Council of the section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar'.

An earlier NESL blogpost on proposed revised ABA accreditation standards is here. Update: The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers has this related June 22, 2006 article: Diversity standards and 'social justice': law schools and teacher education accrediting organizations are in the crosshairs. It is not clear whether it is these current proposed revisions that the ABA neglected to provide to the United States for prior review or earlier ones during the period 1996-present.

1 comment:

Betsy McKenzie said...

There are an article in this week's 6/30 Chronicle of Higher Ed. and another in last week's 6/23 Chronicle about these two events.